Dr. Dennis C. de Paz, University President, bared his administration’s developmental plans for Eastern Visayas State University (EVSU) during the State of the University Address (SUA) in line with the university’s conduct of the 18th Charter Anniversary Celebration, held at Miguel Romualdez Memorial Auditorium today, August 22.

The University President expressed that, despite the university’s achievements in the fourteen months since he has assumed office, there is still much to be done as his administration still has plans for the university.

In his Address, Dr. de Paz said that he aims to convert the university into a modernized campus in 3 years, while simultaneously developing the newly integrated Dulag campus through crafting a comprehensive development plan.

“We will implement the 3-year Smart Campus modernization program to make Eastern Visayas State University a smart university by 2026. With the newly integrated EVSU Dulag Campus, we shall be crafting its 5-year development plan to make sure that we transform the campus in the shortest time possible,” he said.

Furthermore, the university president expressed his willingness to establish annex campuses in Palo and Babatngon but said that the university needs to expand its university-wide ISO certifications to integrate external campuses to fulfill this.

“We shall establish the annex campuses of the Main Campus at Palo and Babatngon. We have already formed a Technical Working Group that will conduct a feasibility study on the academic program offerings for the said annex campuses. To fulfill our quality policy, we shall be moving towards university-wide ISO certification to include all the external campuses,” he clarified.

Meanwhile, he said that the university will continue to review and streamline its administrative and human resource policies and processes, launching EVSU’s internal complaint mechanism to address the concerns of the stakeholders.

“We shall be launching today our internal complaint mechanism using the email address president.information@evsu.edu.ph as part of the EVSU Information System. With this, we hope to address expeditiously the concerns of our stakeholders and provide them quality service,” he said.

Moreover, he recognized the need to improve internationalization initiatives, where he hopes to improve the citation indices of faculty members through the newly approve honorarium rates for adjunct and visiting professors.

“We need to beef up our internationalization initiatives by complying with government requirements on the acceptance of foreign students and matching of academic programs and research projects for possible collaboration and partnership with universities abroad,” he expressed.

Additionally, the university president and his administration will continue to propose infrastructure projects to address the classroom and office shortages with the help of contractors in order to better manage timetables.

“With the help of concerned offices, we will regularly monitor the work accomplishment of contractors and require them to prepare a catch-up plan for on-time completion of projects. We will also expedite the procurement process by engaging in early procurement activities,” he added.

This is University President Dr. Dennis C. de Paz’s first State of the University Address since his inauguration to office last June 03, 2021.

Article by Ton Sierolf Cairo