by Dr. Jose Gatino M. Nacario, VP- Academics
Southwestern University
Just four months after taking control of Southwestern University, conglomerate Phinma Corp. has streamlined operations and introduced changes in keeping with its slogan “Life can be better.”
The colleges have been re-clustered, faculty loading standardized, and guidelines and policies related to foreign students revisited.
The Colleges of Medical Technology, Pharmacy, Nursing, Optometry and Rehabilitative Sciences are clustered into the School of Health and Allied Health Sciences (SHAHS).
The College of Arts and Sciences and the College of Education are now under the School of Arts, Sciences and Education (SASE).
Each college is assigned a dean. The dean of the College of Medical Technology is, at the same time, the SHAHS dean, who is in charge of synergizing faculty experts, sharing common laboratories and leading the colleges in varied strategic initiatives.
The SASE dean shares similar functions with the SHAHS dean.
Stand-alone colleges are Management and Accountancy, IT & Engineering, Law & Criminology, Dentistry, Veterinary Medicine and the School of Medicine.
For the Basic Education Department, a dean manages the two campuses (Main and Basak) to include the creation of activities that would promote oneness of teachers in both campuses.
All the deans have had several meetings with Dr. Chito B. Salazar, SWU president and chairman of the board, to device and realize several schemes, guidelines and policies.
To standardize faculty loading, the 24-unit load as mandated will be strictly observed effective this second semester.
Even if teachers are qualified and competent, if overloaded with too many preparations, classroom instruction would definitely suffer.
To implement this policy, preparations included: revisiting the curriculum (program prospectus), subject ownership, subject budgeting, and trimming down of faculty in some colleges to accommodate needs from other colleges.
The Phinma Education Network (PEN) Academics Team based in Makati visited SWU to mentor the deans, human resources staff and registrar.
Students will experience exciting teaching-learning encounters for they will be provided with teachers who are more motivated, inspired and driven.
The university, which is known to have the most number of international students among universities in Cebu, has come up with new guidelines with regards to foreign students.
The university will still continue to accept international students for the BS in Biological Sciences, Medicine and Dentistry programs. There are several takers as well in Optometry, Physical Therapy, IT, Engineering, Public Health and even high school.
Recently, the Thailand ambassador and consul visited the campus to meet with the Thai students. It was an opportunity to inform the students of the new guidelines. Agents from India and Nepal were also made aware.
The university has also adopted technology, encouraging Skype meetings, use of Google spreadsheets, and making policy decisions through email.
These practices encouraged the personnel especially those digital-immigrant administrators and faculty to shift paradigm and embrace internationally accepted practices in working with companies and corporations.
After all, this is a met need since students nowadays are 21st century learners. Teachers therefore must be equipped in honing skills of learners expected of problem-based learning through active learning programs.
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