People in charge of the university’s administration will come and go, but they will always face these three community challenges – instruction, infrastructure, and internationalization. The Industrial Wheel, being the provider of the platform for discussion, has always been writing through editorials and columns about those challenges since its inception, and this editorial will be a reiteration of those writeups, add some new details.

Even if former university president Dr. Dominador Aguirre did a stellar work during his 8-year tenure as the university’s chief pilot, there is still a lot of ground to break, metaphorically and literally, for the new president Dr. Dennis De Paz. 

The biggest challenge for Dr. De Paz’ first year in term is, without a doubt, on academic instruction. EVSU’s new normal setup called “flexible learning system” drew flak from students for ironically lacking flexibility – students were still required to attend online classes, even those who selected “limited connectivity” in a survey during the enrolment last school year. The setup was also tagged as “anti-poor” since students with limited access to resources were left behind by their counterparts. In addition, some of the instructors and professors forgot to practice leniency despite the difficult situation the community is in. Lastly, the amount of work imposed to students last school year is unnecessarily burdensome – the system of instruction and the number of required tasks to be submitted is still very similar to pre-pandemic levels which clearly doesn’t work well in the virtual setup. These, and among other struggles, took a toll on students’ mental health, forcing some to drop out of school for the meantime while the face-to-face setup is still not in place.

Dr. De Paz, being the former Vice President for Academic Affairs, should take a look at the implemented academic setup and make necessary revisions for the school year by using student feedbacks to determine areas of improvement. He should also plan for the “balik-normal” set-up, such as reducing the student-instructor ratio, integrating state-of-the-art technologies for learning, and providing more equipment for the laboratories to use.

The community’s second challenge to the new batch of administrators is infrastructure-related, especially expansion and development. Pre-pandemic batch of students can vouch for this – there is simply not enough classrooms to handle a population of beyond 10,000 for the main campus alone. Classes and student-instructor meet-ups in college lobbies and outside spaces are very common scenarios. Student population is also expected to rise once pandemic is over due to the influx of new and returning students. Finally, EVSU is set to host various future regional and national events, notably the biggest sports event in the region, SCUAA.

While Dr. Aguirre’s administration saw new buildings for the students to use, the Yolanda’s aftermath caused a huge lag due to funds being diverted to rehabilitation efforts. It is therefore a must for Dr. De Paz to carry forward with the infrastructure efforts of the past administration. He may consider the possibility of acquiring additional land area for the construction of much-needed new classrooms and laboratories for the main campus, while not forgetting renovations to previous areas of concern such as perimeter security and comfort rooms. The COVID-19 pandemic provides a good window of opportunity for this endeavour since students are out of the university grounds, although progress will be affected due to national funds being re-diverted to pandemic efforts.

De Paz’ administration should focus on internationalization last, since international partnerships and collaboration will naturally wind up when the university is doing excellent on its infrastructure and instruction. The past admin is well-remembered on its internationalization efforts, especially focusing on the ASEAN integration and ISO accreditations, and the new admin only has to pick up of what’s left behind by Dr. Aguirre.

These three I’s have strong links to each other – it is tough to provide quality instruction without classrooms and laboratories, international collaborations are necessary to further bolster infrastructure projects and academic instruction methods, and et cetera. Therefore, even if the new administration headed by Dr. De Paz will have certain bias to one of the challenges, he is already working on the others as well. Although, providing attention to the three is the best course of action for the university. 

Dr. Aguirre’s presidency is well-rated by the members of the EVSU community, so much that it led to his reappointment. It is therefore expected of the new president, Dr. Dennis De Paz, to continue and even went further beyond what his predecessor has accomplished. The EVSU community hopes that Dr. De Paz will have the needed wisdom, tenacity, and perseverance during his four-year term as the EVSU’s new helms person.