News from UP Diliman

By: Bob Boyer

 

Joel Mann, my colleague from St. Norbert College, returned in June from teaching at UP Diliman during what is now the Spring-Summer semester (January to June; explanation to come later). The UP-SNC faculty exchange had started up again with Joel and, I thought, his faculty counterpart at UP. I was anxious to know how everything had gone and how my UP friends were doing. Unfortunately it has taken until now, the third week of August, for us to get together so I could catch up on the news.

I had been particularly curious to find out how Joel, a member of our philosophy faculty at St. Norbert, had gotten to know so many of my friends and former colleagues in the Department of English and Comparative Literature (DECL). The answer, as he told me with a wide grin on his face, is that he, a philosopher, taught in the DECL. Apparently the original exchange agreement with the UP Philosophy Department fell through at the last minute. In their mindsets, Joel and his wife and two young daughters were practically on their way to the airport.

The DECL to the rescue. “Instead of philosophy I ended up teaching two comp-lit courses, a graduate seminar called ‘Tragedy and Philosophy’ and an undergraduate survey of ‘Literary Criticism.’ With his extensive background in ancient philosophy, the “Tragedy and Philosophy” was no problem. After all, Sophocles and Company (Greek and Roman) basically took Aristotle’s definition of tragedy and applied to the stage. Or was it the other way round? In any case, it was not a problem for Joel. The survey of lit-crit, on the other hand, took “lots and lots” of preparation.

The good news is that DECL was flexible and welcomed Joel, thank you all. And I got a dividend as well in the form of pasalubong (thank you, Lily Rose and Isabel) when Joel returned. I could also tell from Joel’s conversation that he enjoyed the UP students. “Bright” and “serious” were two of the accolades he used. What matters it that the Balay Kalinaw residence for visiting professors still has no hot water plumbing when you have such good students.

I was not surprised when Joel told me that the new academic calendar had gone into effect at UP. I had heard that they were moving to adopt the calendar used in the US. What I hadn’t thought about was that the secondary and primary schools kept the old system. Basically what this meant was that UP students were still in class until late May, while their younger siblings (and families) were enjoying their vacations in the nice March and April weather. And, “it was brutally hot in May,” said Joel.

The other bit of news involving school calendars in Manila and presumably throughout the country is that instead of graduating from High School at age 16, students now will graduate at age 18. That is the norm in the US, but not, I know in the UK, and I’m guessing much of Europe as well, where it is 16. I must confess, however, that I smiled when Joel told me this news. I had taught in a classroom at UP right next to a class full of sixteen-year-olds, the noisiest group I encountered the entire semester.

A welcome bit of news that made me smile with fond memories is that Palawan still beckons the traveler from near and far. He and his family spent a long weekend there.

Joel’s wife is a licensed scuba diver and loved the experience. Joel and I presume his daughters (four-almostfive and six-almost-seven), went snorkeling. Like them I will long remember discovering the amazing colors of the coral reefs, that is when you could see your way through the ocean of fish of every size and description. Joel’s wife, by the way, is a specialist in the organic food industry and did some consulting at a coconut plantation in Quezon Province, another bit of good news that further supports the continuance of the UP-SNC exchange program. I hope so.
Contact Bob Boyer at Robert.boyer@snc.edu or <www.anamericaninmanila.com>.