Voyage (from Prof. Maya Herrera)

I saw this post about the University of the Philippines, my college alma mater, originally from Pink Fever and I then realized that the article she cited was written by Prof. Maya Herrera, our professor in Financial Management 2 (FM2). I knew she was a fellow "Iskolar ng Bayan" (Scholar of the Country) but I did not know how much she valued the U.P. experience until I read what she wrote.

To cite a few lines from Prof. Herrera's article:

If you speak to anyone from UP – student, professor, alumnus - you will get no Latin slogans or apologies about how the school teaches values in spite of its outward materialism.  This is not a student population that thinks about basketball games or memorizes school songs.  This is not a school that chooses one statement to drill into the minds of its students.

This is not, of course, to say that UP does not care about values.  It is that UP, in its own inimitable way, believes that values cannot be force-fed. The statue of the naked man that guards the entrance to the campus in Diliman best represents UP’s approach to all education and the respect for students that is the center of its educational philosophy.  All who come to this university, regardless of origin, bring themselves naked, carrying nothing but their thirst; like the proverbial empty teacup, making an offering of self, waiting to be filled.

The full article, entitled Voyage, appeared first in Prof. Herrera's column in the Manila Standard Today last June 6, 2008.