“Gusto ko lang sana, magkaroon naman ng puso ang UP for all of its honor and excellence na pino-promote niya sa tao. Naniniwala ako na yung UP, may compassion para sa mga estudyanteng katulad ko,” said Eunice Santiago, a graduating Sociology major who now fears that she will not be able to graduate this year because of circumstances out of her control.
Santiago, like several other CSSP majors, are urging the University’s Committee on Student Admission, Progress, and Graduation (CSAPG) to waive stringent prerequisite and corequisite requirements that would prevent them from graduating this July.
In total, the College Executive Board has flagged 13 CSSP majors – three Political Science majors, three Sociology majors, two Psychology majors, one Anthropology major, one History major, and one Philosophy major, and two majors that are still unknown – with unit crediting issues that might bar them from graduating if their appeals are denied.
With only a few days to go before graduation and their appeals for reconsideration still set aside by the UP administration, the majors are growing anxious and desperate for a favorable response.
By tomorrow, after the University Student Council discusses their appeals with Chancellor Carlo Vistan, they hope that they can finally rest assured that they will be UP graduates by the end of the month.
“Circumstances were out of our hands,” majors say
In their appeals, the students pointed out that the issues with their classes were all out of their hands.
The three Sociology majors, for example, said that they did not know about the issues because the prerequisites and corequisites were not indicated on the CRS, their program advisers and other officials did not inform them about any additional requirements, and their professor allowed them to enlist and finish the classes, without mentioning any of these requirements.
The three students, Rowella Berizo, Jin Perez, and Eunice Santiago, were only informed about the issues in their classes – CD 121, Anthro 119, and SW 110 respectively – by the CSSP College Secretary two months ago, well into the second semester.
“We assert that each of our cases, at any point, has not been any of our fault because we diligently followed any and all information relayed to us regarding them. The CSSP’s late recognition of our cases was indisputably beyond our control and such rules were not indicated in the CRS: a system that is meant to be accessible for all students,” they said in their appeal.
The students are not appealing their decisions alone; not only have their fellow majors released statements of support, their program advisers and even their course instructors in the flagged classes are backing up their claims.
Dr. Nestor Castro, for example – Jin Perez’s Anthropology 119 professor – praised Perez for being one of his top students, saying that he even outperformed his Anthropology major classmates.
“I welcomed someone with a background in Sociology in my class thinking that he could contribute significantly to class discussions.. I believe that I was not wrong in allowing Mr. Perez to enlist in Museology,” said Castro.
Still, these endorsements fell on deaf ears. Even worse, for some, the prerequisites and corequisites were not even required at all.
In Santiago’s case, for example, even the Department of Social Work said that the co-requisite for SW 110 was only for Social Work majors, and so it did not apply to the Sociology major’s case.
“The co-requisite, SW 120 — Social Work and the Filipino Personality, is meant only for BSSW majors in order for them to have a critical lens when they study and discuss mainstream psychological theories in SW 120. Non-BSSW majors taking SW110 as an elective need not take the SWA 120 corequisite,” said Asst. Prof. Ana Teresa Prondosa, the department’s chairperson.
The CSAPG still denied their requests despite all of this support and the circumstances surrounding the cases, providing no justification other than a reiteration of the university’s rules.
The same is true for other cases as well. Like Santiago, a psychology major took SW 110 without SW 120 and was warned that the class will not be credited, potentially barring him from graduating this semester with Latin Honors.
Despite a glowing statement of support from his program adviser calling him a “diligent and accomplished student” as well as the same clarification from Asst. Prondosa clarifying that SW 120 is not actually required, the CSAPG disapproved his appeal as well, only telling him to either take SW 120 or take another class without a corequisite.
In another case, a transferee Philosophy student who was supposed to graduate this year was only told last Friday that 21 of his units from his previous school – in other words, an entire overloaded semester – would not be credited.
All of these classes are major subjects, some of which are not offered in the first semester. This means that if the CSAPG denies his appeal, he will have to stay for another year before graduating.
Setting aside the different classes, rules, and reasons, all 21 cases have one thing in common: these minor academic guidelines will mean major delays for all of the students.
“Unfair, unreasonable” to bar students from graduation
The students and their supporters are pointing out that it is unfair and unreasonable to set aside the circumstances and prevent students from graduating solely based on these narrow interpretations of stringent academic guidelines.
“We affirm that they are not to blame for their circumstances, and that their confronted constraints are beyond their control. The concerned students did everything they could, with all the information available to them, to diligently comply with the demands of their undergraduate degree,” said Kalipunan ng mga Mag-aaral ng Sosyolohiya (KMS) in a statement supporting the three Sociology majors.
They say that especially given that these cases happened during the pandemic, the University should extend leniency and approve their appeals.
They also emphasized the practical implications of barring them from graduation, especially for those struggling financially.
“Gusto ko na talang grumaduate. Panganay ako, at syempre, may mga kapatid akong nag-aaral pa, kaya kailangan ko nang tulungan ang magulang ko. Sobrang laking dagok sa akin kung hindi pa ako mapapa-graduate ng UP,” Santiago said.
She also stressed that it was unreasonable to force such a large setback on her for such a tiny problem that was out of her hands from the get-go.
“Sobrang wasteful lang na babalik ka sa UP para lang sa three units na hindi ko naman kasalanan in the first place,” she said.
The students say that they are not asking for much; they only want the University to uphold its values of honor and excellence by also exercising a necessary virtue: compassion.
They hope that UP will live up to the wordplay often used on its acronym: a university with not only Utak, but Puso as well.
Featured image courtesy of GMA News Online.
ERRATUM: The College Executive Board only flagged thirteen students with unit crediting issues. The original post said that there were 21 CSSP majors in danger of not graduating, thirteen of which were from the Department of Political Science. This was due to a misunderstanding of an initial report. The report from the department said that there were 13 students flagged college-wide, and not just in their department. The corrected figures are now indicated in the article.
