MERGING of offices, creation of new academic departments,
appointment of new administrators and heads, and assignment
of employees to Letran-Abucay opened this school year.
Fusion of departments and academic areas
Streamlining of services
was cited as the reason why some offices and departments
have been fused. Jhennie Caldito, assistant head of
the institutional communication and relations office,
said that the administration found an opportunity to
merge several departments with the same functions.
Among these departments are
the Office of Student Services (OSS) and Cultural Affairs
Office (CAO). “CAO is inclined with OSS,”
Caldito explained. As a result, the Office of Student
and Cultural Affairs (Osaca) is formed. The former heads
of OSS and CAO, Juan Jeffrey Consignado and Teresita
Magmayo, take charge of the new office as head and assistant
head, respectively.
On the other hand, Research,
Planning, and Development Center and Human Resource
Department are now called Research, Planning, and Organizational
Development (RPOD). “Organizational development
includes human resources,” Caldito explained.
Also, the Library and Media Center are now under one
name, Library and Media Services. “Library and
Media Center are both service departments. They are
more on the acquisition and lending of instructional
materials,” Caldito explained.
Meanwhile, the Graduate School
of Business is merged with the College of Business Administration
and Accountancy (CBAA). Dr. Victoria Rosas, former assistant
dean of the CBAA, and Irene Marie Isleta, former assistant
dean of College of Liberal Arts, Sciences, and Education,
now head the CBAA and the Graduate School as dean and
assistant, respectively. Caldito said that the appointment
of Rosas and Isleta resulted from the resignation of
the former dean and assistant dean of CBAA. On the fusion
of CBAA and the Graduate School, she explained, “Such
will help in marketing the graduate school with our
existing business students.”
However, the fusion of offices
and departments would not mean retrenchment of employees.
Caldito said that the employees affected by the fusion
will just transfer to the newly formed offices.
New academic departments
The College of Education’s
separation from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
(CLAS) is in compliance with the Commission on Higher
Education’s memorandum on BS-Education programs.
Fr. Orlando Aceron, O.P., executive vice rector and
vice rector for academic affairs, and Prescilla Abardo,
former assistant head of the Theology area, head the
college as dean and area chair, respectively.
However, this separation
of the College of Education from the CLAS should not
be regarded as autonomy. “It is not autonomy in
a strict sense of the word but it is a separate department
as mandated by the Commission on Higher Education,”
said Fr. Aceron.
As part of the administration’s
operational plan for the years 2004-2008, the communication
and information technology programs are now raised as
institutes. Such raising of these two flagship programs
of the Colegio as institutes aims to increase the rate
of enrollment in these two collegiate departments and
for the purpose of rationalizing the goal of building
world-class centers of IT and communication learning
in the Colegio.Both institutes will be under the CLAS.
The Institute of Communica-tion
will be centralizing on major Communication courses
while the Institute of Information Tech-nology plans
to offer more programs in the future in accordance with
CHED Me-morandum Order No. 25, “Policies and standards
for Information Technology Education.”
Rowena Capulong-Reyes, former
area chair of the com-munication arts area, was ap-pointed
director of the Institute of Communication while Randy
Castillo, head of the Information Technology Center,
takes charge of the Institute of Information Technology.
“We initiated the plan
because we really want to put more emphasis on our activities,”
said IT director, Randy Castillo. Castillo said that
the institute would also provide services to attract
and support students from diverse educational and economic
backgrounds.
Assignment of employees to Letran-Abucay
“We assigned people
from Letran-Intramuros to Letran-Abucay because we would
like to share with them our knowledge in the management
of school,” said Caldito. She said that Letran-Abucay
is already training people to head the school’s
operation in the future. In the meantime, Letran-Intramuros
administrators were either assigned with concurrent
positions or were given special tasks in the management
of the newly opened Letran-Abucay. With reports from
Auralene Dipasupil and Jerica Mayesa delos Santos
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