Unsolicited Advice Galore

As everybody knows, UPLB is now under a two-week old administration under the leadership of Chancellor Rex Victor Cruz, former Dean of the College of Forestry and Natural Resources.  As a result, academics who think as the new leadership does have been given new assignments and responsibilities.  For example, Graduate School Dean Oscar Zamora is now Vice Chancellor for Instruction, CAS Dean Asuncion Raymundo has retired, CFNR Dean Rex Victor Cruz, of course, is the new Chancellor, and Dean Victoria Espaldon of SESAM is now Vice Chancellor for Research and Extension.  There are more who have taken on new assignments and responsibilities.

Preparations are afoot now to select new officials to take over the positions and responsibilities of those assigned to new and higher posts at UPLB, like the Deans of the Graduate School (GS), College of Arts and Science (CAS), College of Forestry and Natural Resources (CFNR), and the School of Environmental Science and Management (SESAM). 

As I’m always fond of doing, I’d like to offer unsolicited advice to those who’ll head two of my favorite institutions: Graduate School and SESAM.

First, let me deal with the Graduate School.  As early as the late 1980’s I’ve written to the GS Dean suggesting the offering of two courses.  If there are GE courses at the undergraduate level, I have been suggesting that perhaps it would be logical as well to have some kind of GE courses at the graduate level.  I’m referring to two very basic graduate courses.  A course on the history and sociology of science should be required of all Master’s degree students.  UPLB is awarding “master of science” degrees, so it’s logical to expect that these MS graduates have excellent understanding of what science is. 

Then, of course, UPLB is graduating PhDs – Doctor of Philosophy, which is a doctorate degree that focuses on the generation of new knowledge through scientific research.  The question is, how familiar are the PhD students and graduates with the subject matter, philosophy of science?  A course on the philosophy of science is necessary and should be required of all doctorate students.

There has been an effort to look into this issue, but these courses, or similar ones, have not been offered at the graduate level so far.

Will this be part of the concern of the next Dean of the UPLB Graduate School?  In my previous unsolicited advise for the new Chancellor, I suggested that UPLB might consider reviewing its academic degree programs in response to new expectations from society.  New concerns for graduate education should be part of this review.

Second, let’s consider the case of SESAM.  Environmental science is both a multi-disciplinary and trans-disciplinary field – it cuts across disciplines in terms of application, and it affects (and is affected by) other disciplines in terms of it being an applied science.  In the past, students of environmental science (both MS and PhD levels) have done their theses with leanings towards management and policies.  Currently, it appears that there’s a perceptible bias towards the science aspect.  For example, I understand that many theses are now oriented towards technical aspects of climate change, geo-morphological concerns of environmental science, even the technical aspects of environmental impact assessments. 

I find nothing wrong with such direction, although it doesn't really enhance the multidisciplinariness of environmental science.  If anything, it's directing students back to their disciplines.  Such orientation to pure or other applied disciplines that are sufficiently more technical is probably encroaching into other disciplines.  Still, it's not absolutely bad to strengthen the technical competence of environmental science students if that's where their research interests might be focused.  Certainly, however, interest in the non-technical aspects (management and policy studies orientation) ought to remain.   I'd also love to see environmental science theses that would tend to synthesize new disciplinary knowledge and procedures in a manner that would enhance better understanding of the environment.  

But, then again, who am I to say what should and shouldn't be done in environmental science?  I'm only voicing out my own personal biases and perceptions as a science communicator who has been watching the field of environmental science since it started out in Los Banos in the 1980s.

If students are encouraged to do technically oriented theses, then I do have a concern regarding the ability of SESAM to backstop the thesis work of its students. 

For example, I believe there are students now doing research that require laboratory tests.  This becomes necessary particularly if the student’s thesis deals, for instance, with analysis of carbon footprints of industries or even agricultural production programs.  The question is, does SESAM have appropriate laboratories to provide support to their student researchers?  Simple chemical analysis of soil samples, or plant samples, or animal samples are expensive and most graduate students do not have the financial resources to support such studies.  Part of the university’s student support system should be making sure that student researchers have access to laboratory facilities that will help them undertake their research projects. 

If SESAM or any other Department at UPLB cannot afford to have its own laboratory facilities, it should perhaps seek to network with institutions that have the resource or enter into some kind of an agreement with other institutions for the purpose of sharing the resources needed in the purchase, installation, and maintenance of such laboratories.  Graduate students, I’m sure, would be willing to pay reasonable fees for use of such facilities if the university really can’t afford to provide such service free of charge.

I know there have been some efforts toward this end sometime in the late 80s or 90s.  I wonder whatever happened to those efforts.

These two are worth re-visiting.  Perhaps the future Deans of the GS and SESAM might look into these?  Well, I can only suggest.

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