Incumbent UP Mindanao Chancellor Sylvia Concepcion was re-appointed to serve a second term by the UP Board of Regents in their 1314th Meeting held on 29 January. Her second three-year term begins on 1 March 2016. The appointment culminated the search process that began in September 2015.
In her vision paper, Chancellor Concepcion stated that, “Institutional strengthening of UP Mindanao will take priority, as a continuation of the development of a collegial culture. We need to be a learning organization, capable of self-correction and agile in adapting to the rapidly changing political and social landscape.”
On the positioning of UP Mindanao in the region, she said, “UP Mindanao has defined its niche as the Mindanao Studies Research Initiatives with two branches: the first being food security and agribusiness systems and the second branch as indigenous knowledge systems & regional creative work. We shall focus our knowledge development and dissemination on these two branches to maximize the use of human and financial resources.”
Regarding research, “UP Mindanao has increased its research output by 25% over the past three years, but we need to publish more. UP Mindanao has regularly organized the International Conference on Agribusiness Economics and Management and have increasingly gained the interest of other researchers from the Philippines and other countries to present their work in these conferences and submit their papers for publication in UP Mindanao’s Banwa journal. We must increase our presence in activities whether hosted by UP of other foreign institutions, and use them as venues to establish relationships with foreign universities for possible partnerships”, she said.
Regarding technology commercialization, she said, “We will continue the development of technology business incubators and the technology transfer and business development office to make sure that innovations developed from our research can be protected and used to the advantage of the greatest majority.”
On instruction, “We have carefully increased the number of our students in the past three years, many of them performing excellently, as proven by the awards in conferences and competitions that measure them against students from other schools. Also, we are revising our undergraduate curricular offerings to respond to the challenges of the ASEAN Integration and the K-12”.
On campus development, the Chancellor disclosed that, “The completed infrastructure development in the past three years amounted to PhP 75 million pesos and within the next 2 years, another PhP 200 million is available to build the Performing Arts Theater of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, the second phase of the School of Management Building, more laboratories for the College of Science and Mathematics, a training gym for the Department of Human Kinetics, and a football field and Phase 1 of the football stadium. We are also building the Center for the Advancement of Research in Mindanao to provide a conducive environment for productive thinking.”
On faculty development, she said, “There is an increase in the proportion of faculty with PhDs from 21% to 24% and masters degree holders from 44 to 49% in 2013 to 2015. We expect the proportion of PhDs to be 32% by 2017. We must strive for 100% PhDs especially since each college will be developing graduate programs.”
On the subject of administration, she said, “An internally strong institution is also a learning institution where there is continuous improvement in processes. A conscious effort must be made to move towards the development of an enabling environment that will encourage all constituents to participate, contribute their ideas, pilot test whenever possible, and implement necessary improvements.”
On the nature of public service, she envisioned that, “Part of the nurturing environment is the environment of discipline where all members of the university serve honestly and dutifully, giving due regard for the resources that our taxpayers have privileged us to use.”
Summing up her plans, she said, “The faculty of UP Mindanao want this institution to be excellent in research, teaching and public service. As a collective, we aspire to be a catalyst of development in Mindanao, serving not only those who enroll or engage us in research but also the marginalized sectors of society like the small and medium scale enterprises, the smallholder farmers and the indigenous peoples.”
On her management style, she expressed that, “I wish to be an enabler even if enablers do not immediately show clear benefits because the enabler for organizational health drives tomorrow’s performance.”
