Grab the wheels - June column

Grab the wheels

The view from my silent observation post tells me DLSU is like an automobile. Now, one only needs to have taken driving lessons in order to drive a car. There is no need to understand how the engine works, or how the power is transmitted to the wheels. As if in a car, students in DLSU are shown only the interior and they are expected to enjoy the ride, from frosh to graduation. There is no encouraging them to step out and inspect what’s under the hood. This “passenger” mindset I believe had crept slowly through the years because of pop culture.

I wonder how DLSU could propagate critical thinking in the classroom (if it really does) and yet provide glaring counterexamples outside of it.

Consider the then-rumored merger of the College of Engineering (COE) and the College of Computer Studies (CCS), now a defunct idea. When the issue was still hot, the Administration kept completely silent. Only a few brave souls went ahead and shared stories with the students.

This issue was cleared with a tone of finality no student can question. And only now has the Administration spoken. Was the Administration transparent in this scenario? Delayed and selective transparency, yes. (See Paul Garilao’s column) However, delayed transparency is not transparency at all. It is useless. Keep a debatable issue under wraps and release it only when any inflow of ideas from the student body will not affect its outcome. This means the Administration has an innate sense of distrust against the student body. It betrays disrespect for students’ abilities to think critically for the future of THEIR university.

Consider the installment of the CCTV camera system. Up to now, the student body can only guess how much was actually spent for the system. Had it not been for a source, we would never have known the winning bid alone cost DLSU 940,000. Call that transparency!

There was virtually no consultation of the student body in this acquisition. Two questions: Was the Administration expecting resistance from the student body, so they bypassed this process? Or had Aikee Esmeli and company done one lousy task of student consultation/representation?

Various policies that have taken effect just this year include CCTV installment, dress code policy especially banning of slippers inside campus, and transformative learning. Obviously, all these policies have started as mere ideas by someone somewhere, just like the merger rumors. (An administrator told me that something classified as “mere idea by someone somewhere” should not be given importance) Now, why does it seem that no matter how hard the student body, represented by the Student Council, tries to resist these new measures, all their efforts are in vain, at best only a compromise is achieved? What I think: There was minimal, if not non-existent student representation when the idea was at its infancy. This is the level where only members of the Administration discuss and come up with conclusions. By the time the idea is presented to the students, it has already been pre-finalized.

This is like uprooting a tree that has ingrained its roots deep underground. Remember the Art of War: The best general wins with the least effort, the best doctor cures before the symptoms come out. This tree should be uprooted while it is still young.

This is why I hope Tapat’s Executive Board would deliver on its promise of having student representatives in several important University committees/councils, like the Board of Trustees and the Operations Council. Who knows where the next big addition to DLSU’s paradigms will be born? The student’s voice should be heard there.

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I salute the guys at Microsoft for coming up with one hell of a difficult yet fun Imagine Cup, Algorithm category. In turn, I wonder why DLSU restricts Internet use so much. Allow me to connect the two sentences.

Imagine Cup is a global competition sponsored by Microsoft. There are several categories including business planning, rendering, software design, IT and algorithm. For the algorithm category I joined, there are three rounds: the elimination round open to everyone internationally, the semifinal round open to the top 200 scorers in the eliminations, and the finals open to the six highest scorers in the semis.

Sorry for self-congratulation, but I was the only Filipino who made it to the semifinal round. Now both the elimination and semifinal round are online (http://imagine.thespoke.net and http://www.wildnoodle.com/msic respectively). The semifinal round was in the form of a game called Herbert (a robot program), and it required .NET framework installed in PCs. So much for up-to-date computers. The framework was not even installed in Velasco computer labs then! I had to bug one technician to allow me to install the update.

The real problem was when ITC required everyone to log in using their MyLaSalle account. Though I am not a computer wizard, I experienced firsthand how this policy restricts student activity on the Internet. Herbert, which runs directly from the Internet, could no longer run in any DLSU computer lab. And my Internet connection at home is as slow as a snail.

This may be my personal ire, but I am quite sure that soon someone will have problems just like what I had. The ITC should carefully review its implementations to not severely delimit Internet use.