Enigma.
This is the word that’s on Foundation University President Victor Vicente Sinco’s mind these days, especially when he would wax philosophical about his school’s mission.
Although born and raised for his first 10 years in Dumaguete with his younger brother Luis, his family moved to the US when his mother Mira obtained her Fulbright scholarship. Coming home in 1999 to help his father Leandro run the University, Victor Vicente, or Dean as he is called, has been battling his school’s image problems.
“Many people have labeled Foundation University as a school for the poor. I’ve been trying to change that,” Sinco told the media in a press conference last week.
For instance, Sinco would rather forget about the times the University went through stages of disrepair, and having to make do with broken windows and run-down facilities and equipment. Dean, who obtained his architecture degree from the University of Washington, is giving Foundation University a giant makeover in his desire to give his students only the best.
“We’re not trying to compete [with any school] but we keep re-examining our purpose. If we do something for the sake of compliance, we kill the idea,” he said.
Sinco initially met the K-12 program, for instance, with huge skepticism, as he saw it only as a way of complying with government requirements. But from that government shift emerged the Foundation Preparatory Academy to cover junior high, senior high, and grade school.
The FPA, now headed by his mother Dr. Mira Sinco continues to adapt to innovations in education, especially with the use of technology.
“We are ready to take the program to the next level; FPA will minimize the giving of exams, and focus more on practical projects. The following year, FPA will no longer be giving grades”, he said.
Foundation University, which pioneered the use of iPads and iBooks for its high school students, is now on the verge of reviving its lost ground in the realm of publishing. “Back then, I was told that we used to have the biggest press in Asia in my grandfather’s Manila compound.”
Slowly, people have started to notice changes in the way things are done at FU. In line with reexamining an activity’s purpose, their beauty pageant, Hara sa FU, for instance, has veered away from presenting candidates in bikinis and swimwear.
“We want to be regarded as an institution that produces people who really know what they’re doing,” he says, but adds that people have a hard time understanding that because of the moniker that it’s a school for the poor.
Take for example, Estudio Damgo, the country’s first design-build program for architecture students. Architect Miguel Guerrero, chairperson of the Green Architecture Advocacy Philippines was so impressed with Estudio Damgo as presented by then Architecture student Von Jovi Biala as his entry to win the Ten Outstanding Students of the Philippines award. “If I were to take up architecture all over again, I would enroll at Foundation University”, he announced.
Last month, Estudio Damgo inaugurated its fourth project — the Dumaguete Tourist Information & Assistance Center at the port area.
Estudio Damgo is now preparing its fifth project, a community comfort lounge at the Rizal Boulevard. Gov. Roel Degamo, an engineer by profession, said he was also impressed by the program that he has challenged the Architecture students from Foundation to help the Province design and build some government buildings in Negros Oriental.
Now, Sinco wants to give his administrators a shot in the arm. He added two established academicians in the University lineup: Dr. Peter Dayot from the Negros Oriental State University, and Dr. Nichol Elman from Silliman University, to engage the faculty in new ways.
With its newly-acquired Deregulated status from the Commission on Higher Education, the University is setting its sights on applying for an autonomous status very soon.
Along with the elevation of the University’s standing in the academic circles, Sinco notes what he calls “a surprising level of compassion by the students, and intelligence and interest in what they want to do in the future.”
He says he can’t attribute this attitudinal change to one particular factor, as FU has been addressing the needs of the community in the last 17 years.
“What is important for us is what these individuals can do for the community when they graduate. It requires everyone to participate, to acknowledge the need, the compassion, the drive, and everything to help the community”. (ARVP)
