May 18, 2012 - Friday   VPA Romero C. Hermosilla

       Summer 2012 is indeed fun learning for the administrators. As consented by the Board of Trustees, the Administrators, whom 11 out of 13 are first timers, went to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.  The 4-day trip, from May 6 to 9, 2012, was to attend an international seminar on Regional Conference on Higher Education-Community-Industry Engagement: Forging Meaningful Partnerships across ASEAN & Asia.  The said trip was realized in relation to the PAASCU recommendation which the school will be revisited this September, 2012.

     The seminar was attended by the Deans, Vice Presidents and the President. They also brought with them a faculty retiree, Mrs. Carmelita P. Gonzales, who has served SMC for 25 years and also a Discipline Coordinator for eight years. It was a very good reward on her part which probably motivates other personnel to stay longer or better, until 60 years old, the retirement age. 

     The seminar took place at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM or The National University of Malaysia) on the 7th to 9th May 2012. The Conference aimed to bring together diverse practitioners from academia, industries, non-governmental organizations, government agencies, foundations who are passionate about university-community-industry engagement for regional development. The Conference was organized by AsiaEngage, a brand name created to maximize the strengths of the Asia-Talloires Network of Industry and Community Engaged Universities (ATNEU), the ASEAN University Network (AUN) Thematic Network on University Social Responsibility and Sustainability (AUN-USR&S) and the ASEAN Youth Volunteer Programme (AYVP). 

     It aimed to provide a dedicated platform for diverse stakeholders from academia, industries, NGOs and government agencies to forge meaningful partnerships. This will be through opportunities for thematic paper presentations to share innovative industry and community engagement practices, post-conference workshops by community engagement experts to develop competencies in areas such as social participatory research and social impact assessment, and forums to inspire youth volunteerism for regional community development. 

     After the conference, everyone’s excited for the tour to know further what’s stored for the country as an Islamic one.  To our surprise, it was not a typical Islamic country that we thought but it is endowed with a diversity of cultures of three of Aisa’s oldest civilizations – Malay, Chinese and Indian. Imagine the fusion of the cultures that Malaysia has this time. Malaysia therefore is a country of contrast. The group enjoyed a lot of the varied tourist spots visited such museum, mosques, monuments, parks, wet market and of course their food. But what probably stayed in our minds among the several major attractions in the vicinity of Kula Lumpur was when the group had their photos in the two of the noted towers. Namely the Kuala Towers and of course the Petronas Twin towers. The latter is believed to be the world’s tallest twin towers towering at a height of 452m. 

     Bursting with color, pulsating with life, certainly, Malaysia is Truly Asia!