Majority of UP Diliman profs approve calendar change

MANILA, Philippines - Majority of the regular faculty members of the University of the Philippines (UP) in Diliman, Quezon City have supported the proposal to move the opening of the school calendar from June to August.

Official results of the three-day faculty referendum held on Feb. 24 to 26 showed that 647 of the 954 regular faculty members who participated in the voting are in favor of the proposed calendar shift. A total of 274 faculty members voted against the shift.

The results said some participants only answered the second question of the referendum, which asked: “If you favor an academic calendar that starts in August, when do you like it first implemented?”

The tally of the answers to the second question showed that 499 faculty members wanted the implementation of the calendar change this year, while 154 wanted it to be implemented next year.

The referendum, which covered 1130 regular UP Diliman faculty members, was held after the UP Board of Regents (BOR) approved the implementation of the calendar change in six of seven constituent universities of UP.

The Diliman campus was yet to finish its consultations when the regents voted on the proposal in January.

The result of the faculty referendum, however, is not the official stand of UP Diliman on the matter.

In a post on Facebook, incoming student council chairperson Arjay Mercado said the Diliman Executive Committee – composed of the chancellor, vice chancellors, deans and directors of different colleges and units– decided to let the university council (UC) decide on the issue.

The UC is composed of more regular faculty members with the rank of assistant professor and above.

Mercado said UP Diliman Chancellor Tan– who assumed his new post this month– “proposed to have another round of consultations to be done with the students with the help of the University Student Council.”

“He said that he will forward the result of the said consultation during the UC meeting on (March 24),” he added.

Earlier, some UP professors against the shift criticized the decision of the campus to hold a referendum despite the earlier UC decision not to endorse the proposal.

In December, the UC already voted not to endorse the proposal of its administrators and recommended “for a more in-depth study to understand the possible advantages gained as well as challenges encountered when effecting such a shift.”

Then UP Diliman chancellor Caesar Saloma said that only 157 faculty members– or less than 13 percent of the total council membership– attended the meeting when they voted not to endorse the proposal.

Professors against the shift, however, argued that the vote should be held valid as the faculty manual only requires 75 UC members in attendance to obtain a quorum. 

“Indeed, the referendum raises serious process questions: why was a faculty referendum conducted when the UC had already spoken on the issue. UC decisions in the past have never been questioned on such grounds and a quorum has always been considered sufficient,” read a statement released during the referendum.

The Congress of Teachers and Educators for Nationalism and Democracy also said earlier that Philippine universities are not yet ready to compete with its counterparts due to “inadequate academic infrastructure and resources to carry out a fully competitive higher education institutions.”

Militant group Anakbayan earlier denounced what they described as railroading of the academic calendar shift.

“The manner with which it was passed, without consulting the students of the various UP campuses, clashes with UP’s supposedly democratic traditions,” said Anakbayan.

“It will discriminate against students who come from poor peasant families, as the vacation months of the current academic calendar coincide with the harvest and planting seasons for many food crops,” the group added.

Meanwhile, student political party Alyansa – which will head the incoming student council– urged the BOR to defer deciding on the academic calendar shift for Diliman “until and unless logistical concerns are addressed, consultations made and more extensive studies and research conducted.”

Based on the guidelines for the referendum, all regular faculty members with the rank of assistant professor and above were qualified to participate in the faculty referendum.

Instructors, meanwhile, were enjoined to respond to the parallel but separate survey “to allow the administration to assess the sentiment of instructors regarding the academic calendar.”

Based on the results, 281 out of the 293 instructors who participated in the referendum voted for the proposed calendar, while 86 voted for the current calendar.

A total of 215 instructors voted for the proposed schedule to be implemented this year, while 67 voted for the implementation in 2015.

Three instructors who participated in the survey did not signify any answer.

Meanwhile, several UP campuses covered by the BOR decision have released their respective academic calendars that adopted the shift of the school opening from June to August.

In its approved academic calendar, the UP Manila administration said classes for the first semester this year will start on Aug. 6. The schedule covers the School of Health Sciences in Palo, Baler, and Koronadal.

The first semester of UP Manila is scheduled to end in Dec. 5, while the second semester classes will start on Jan. 26. It will end on May 29. Classes for the short term period, previously referred to as the summer term, will run from June 17 to July 17.

The UP Visayas administration also released on its computerized registration system website  a copy of the approved academic calendar that will cover its campuses in Tacloban and Miag-ao, Iloilo. The start of classes for the first semester is set on Aug. 18 and will end on Dec. 5.

Second semester classes will run from Jan. 26 to May 22, while the short term classes will run from June 18 to July 24.

On its website, the UP Open University announced that all of its first semester programs will start its classes on Aug. 23, while the trimestral programs will start classes on Sept. 6. The entire academic calendar has yet to be released.

The deadline of application for admission was also moved to March 29 for graduate programs with examination such as the PhD in Education and the Master of Public Management, along with the Doctor of Communication program.

Application for the rest may be submitted until April 26.

The three were among the seven units of the UP System that was covered by the earlier BOR decision that allowed the implementation on a pilot basis of the academic calendar shift.

The other UP campuses– Baguio, Los Baños, Mindanao, and Cebu– have yet to release their respective academic calendars for the incoming school year.