The PRESIDENT SPEAKS
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The PRESIDENT SPEAKS
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| Keynote speech delivered by Dr. Ben S. Malayang III during the 4th SUACONA TIPON in Toronto, Canada from June 27-July 1, 2007. STRATEGIC
CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR SILLIMAN
Silliman is 106 years
old this year. Many physical changes have taken place. If its founders
could see the campus now, they might hardly recognize it. But through
the years, our vision of Silliman remains. It is the same today as when
the school was founded in 1901. Our vision is of a school offering an
education ranking among the best in the Philippines, if not the world,
and of a school standing proud and sure on its evangelical Christian faith. Strategic
Mission in the Medium Term Our university
has adopted a Five-Year Strategic Plan for pursuing its vision in the
years from 2006 to 2011. It is a plan that focuses on building competence,
character and faith, together. The plan seeks to bolster four areas of
Silliman excellence: Excellence in academic life is the hallmark of Silliman education. It means to struggle to purvey the truest of truths. It means doing the best we can to gain knowledge, impart knowledge and use knowledge to serve others, despite limiting circumstances we find ourselves in the university. We have four goals
in our plan relating to academic excellence: • Our fourth goal is to expand the opportunities for our faculty and staff, and students, to do research and extension work. We will encourage them to produce more publications and displays of creativity. We plan especially to have recipients of professorial chairs publish or present the results of their work. We aim to integrate faith, instruction, research and extension (which form the acronym FIRE) to get Silliman heated up academically. As an indication of our resolve to celebrate the many of our faculty and staff members who, in their lives with us, helped shape the distinct features of Silliman education, we recently established a “Heritage Builders Recognition Program” so that every Founders Day we shall cause to be inscribed on a Heritage Builders’ Wall on campus the names of ten former personnel who served Silliman with distinction for at least 20 years. The stress on excellent governance focuses on putting in place in Silliman working mechanisms that allow for multilevel transparency, differentiated but shared accountability, participatory decision making, and predictability. The plan aims for a flatter decision making structure in the university. Options will be discussed openly and decisions made with all levels of leadership. It includes setting up open and transparent procurement systems, which for capital items will involve officers of our alumni association, student government, and the faculty and staff associations. It highlights constant and accurate reporting to the Board of Trustees, recognizing that the setting of fiscal policy and financial oversight are rightfully Board prerogatives. The goal is to ensure that we keep the traditions of integrity and decency in how we do things in Silliman. Of course, there will never be any time when we can fully claim that we have done enough to improve governance. But we intend to keep on doing better. Excellence in Relevance and Reach focuses on getting Silliman involved in public affairs and in the initiatives of other institutions to promote education as a powerhouse for building society. Our plan aims to better position Silliman as a significant institution of learning in our nation’s continuing struggle for justice, peace, progress, cultural articulation, environmental integrity, and human dignity. We aim to expand our participation in local, national and international academic initiatives to mobilize education to address urgent concerns like globalization and climate change. We want to affirm cultures and to keep searching for ways to cool down ethno-religious conflicts. Silliman is an active member of national and international academic organizations. Many of our faculty and staff are involved in public advocacies for justice and peace, gender rights, law and development, environmental protection, and on controlling HIV/AIDS. Many are active in the promotion of creative writing and literature, culture and arts, and in research. In fact, Silliman is an active member of 74 academic and professional organizations in the Philippines and Asia. Building relevance and reach, like all the other areas where we aim to excel, is a continuing concern. We may not always be able to do everything we might wish, but we are committed to keep raising Silliman’s value and significance to the world outside our campus by the sea. We week for Silliman to become like a lighthouse in a vast ocean of human struggles. The lighthouse does not ring bells or fire guns to call attention to its luminance. It simply shines. Challenges and Opportunities We are resolved to achieve our 5-Year Plan. We are aware of the challenges we face, but also of opportunities that lie before us. Challenges There are perhaps three challenges to Silliman: (1) being able to maintain and expand its relevance, (2) being able to adopt to changing government regulations, and (3) being able to manage its limited resources. Relevance refers to Silliman’s programs and academic offerings being of high value to society. It is about how our nation can expect Silliman to provide it with the kind of moral compass and technical education it needs to achieve its aspirations. But aspirations change and the conditions under which they are pursued continue to change. The challenge is for Silliman to offer a mix of programs that can provide a constant anchor of excellent education in a constantly changing world. Silliman has to have a portfolio of offerings useful to society in both present and unfolding times. We need to determine which of our programs cater to critical but momentary needs and which have continuing universal and timeless value to people everywhere. We need to identify programs that are relevant to a world undergoing transitions in global trade, climate change, and social and religious pluralization, and those which we must also offer because they serve humanity’s timeless search for the beautiful, the ethical, the divine, and the sublime. Getting the mix right is a challenge. Relevance is also about how Silliman will be able to offer quality education in a world that has fallen prey to the lure of commoditized training. It is a challenge to Silliman to provide education that will transform students into persons of competence, character and faith, when, in general, formal education today seems focused on acquiring the minimum credentials for immediate employment. It is a challenge to Silliman that it is able to inspire students to appreciate poetry, music, history, religious studies, and philosophy, when most of them would rather hurry getting a diploma so that they can immediately enter the workforce. The second challenge is regulations. Silliman is a Philippine corporation governed by Philippine laws on commerce and business. It is an educational institution that is also governed by national statutes on higher education. More so, it is a Christian institution needing to be part of the larger work and mission of the United Church of Christ in the Philippines. Because of its avowed Christian mission, expectations are high. The challenge to Silliman is for it to be able to sustain its prophetic mission in the face of limiting and unpredictable political, institutional and legal restrictions. Regulations, too often, are driven by politics. It is a challenge to Silliman to pursue its mission and to maintain its unique Christian presence in the face of changing regulatory environments. Tuition and fees, which have tremendous political sensitivity, are highly regulated. But the costs of education are driven by market factors, which often defy regulations. It is a continuing challenge to Silliman to be able to pay its bills despite its highly restrained ability to earn. The third challenge is resources. Silliman may be old, but it is not as awash with assets as many other schools in the country. Since its founding in 1901, Silliman has always been a mission and service school. It provides education at a level of quality that costs more than what it requires its students to pay. To this day, students pay only a portion of the cost of their Silliman education. The balance comes from gifts and donations of alumni and friends. Opportunities The challenges to Silliman are considerable. But we remain unfazed. We take note that in the face of challenges, Silliman has unique opportunities for achieving its mission. Three opportunities stand out: (1) it has a corps of competent faculty and staff, (2) it is supported by a community of caring alumni and friends, and a (3) it is blessed with a conscientious Board of Trustees. Silliman’s faculty and staff are still among the best in the country. These loyal professionals remain the best because of their credentials and their deep dedication to Silliman and to what it stands for. We have among the widest arrays of degree offerings, research, and extension activities in the Philippines, perhaps next only to 3 to 5 big schools in the country including the University of the Philippines. Silliman bested all schools including UP in the first national competition for best research undertaken by the Commission on Higher Education last year. Like in the days of yore, Sillimanians everywhere can continue to hold their heads up as still among the best educated people in the Philippines. Alumni and friends are critical components of Silliman education. There was a time when Silliman was able to offer education that cost much more than its students were made to pay because of funding support from foreign mission boards. We continue to have United Board support and support from foreign Church organizations like the United Church of Christ USA, the Mennonite Church in Canada, and the World Council of Churches, among others. But essentially, the time of huge grants from foreign mission boards is gone. Now, Silliman more heavily relies on the generous support of its alumni and friends. Such giving presently allows Silliman to provide about 20% on average of the costs of its services to students. Tuition constitutes only about 59% of the cost, while fees cover another 18-21%. The rest is covered by grants, gifts and endowments from many Sillimanians everywhere. We are able to build the Twin Portals Building, the 3-building nursing education complex, the new Uytengsu Computer Studies Building. Soon, upgrade of the Luce Auditorium, acquire a 345-hectare ranch in Masbate, and restart our broadcast ministry with DYSR, because of support from alumni and friends. Alumni and friends make many things happen in Silliman. And so, in gratitude, we had began to do the following: • Provide discounts on admission testing fees for children of alumni • Send out to our alumni and friends monthly email updates on events in the campus • Improve our website and update its contents weekly to better link us with our alumni and friends • Establish a committee to monitor donations and gifts and to see to it that the university acknowledges each gift and use it as designated by the donor. We call this a “Continuing Fellowship Committee” in the belief that every gift represents its donor’s continuing sense of being part of Silliman • Create the “Order of Horace B. Silliman” to recognize donors of capital assets like land, buildings, and negotiable instruments • Establish a “Gallery of Gratitude” where names of donors of scholarships, professorial chairs, books, equipment, and program funds are inscribed on metal scrolls mounted on the gallery’s walls Our Board of Trustees offers us unique opportunities for properly charting our future. It is a big plus to Silliman that it has a Board that is active and exceedingly competent to set the university’s long-term directions across vast oceans of economic, social and political risks and uncertainties. A Board with a clear vision of Silliman’s mission and an acute sense of the many human and financial intricacies of operating a mission-oriented university accords Silliman a unique opportunity for progress. These three – a competent faculty and staff, a caring community of alumni and friends, and a conscientious Board of Trustees – form a bundle of opportunities that, if properly cultivated and harnessed, will allow Silliman to achieve its goals. Many might say that Silliman is but a small school tucked on a small island in the middle of a small country. But we dare to dream big and to seize the future as many other Sillimanians before us did. We dare so because Silliman is not just a campus beside the sea. It is all of its community of alumni and friends in all parts of the globe. It faces challenges but also unique opportunities to achieve its dreams. Silliman is small, but it has strength. Above all, it has the conviction of being a ministry powered by grace. And so, like the small shepherd boy, David, with a small stone but swung in a sling of faith, Silliman has all of what it takes to fell a giant, and to become the big vision of itself. My complements to all of you. God bless ug daghang salamat.
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