University of the Philippines Diliman

The University of the Philippines Diliman (also referred to as UPD or UP Diliman) is a coeducational, research state university located in Diliman, Quezon City, Philippines. It was established on February 12, 1949 as the flagship campus and seat of administration of the University of the Philippines System, the national university of the Philippines. UP Diliman is the fourth oldest constituent university of UP.

Delegated in 1939 as the new campus of then University of the Philippines centered in Manila, the Diliman campus was created from the 493-hectare area of the Diliman district of the then newly established Quezon City to address the increasing population of the university and to acknowledge the demands to expand its roster of academic programs. The outbreak of World War II hampered the development of the area.

Under the governance of UP President Bienvenido Gonzalez through a P13 million grant from the US-Philippines War Damage Commission, much of the UP was transferred from its campus in Manila to the bigger Diliman campus and delegated UP Diliman as the University of the Philippines System's seat of administration. The transfer of the Oblation from Manila to Diliman marked the campus's establishment on February 12, 1949.

Between the 1970s and 1980s, UP Diliman was the site of much student activism. It was during these times that student demonstration and opposition against Marcos' administration became heavy and aggressive. This was one of the precursors to Marcos' declaration of martial law in 1972.

UP Diliman was formally established as a constituent university on April 23, 1985 at the 976th Meeting of the U.P. Board of Regents.

It is the largest constituent university in the University of the Philippines System in terms of number of degree-granting academic units, student population, faculty, and library resources. There are 27 degree-granting units on campus, accounting for 22,031 students of which, 15,299 are undergraduates. UP Diliman had a complement of 1,526 full-time faculty in 2012, of whom 528 have doctoral degrees. In addition to the units in the main campus, UP Diliman has extension programs in Pampanga and Olongapo City as well as a marine laboratory in Bolinao, Pangasinan under The Marine Science Institute, and an annex campus at Bonifacio Global City, a financial district in the city of Taguig. UP Diliman offers academic programs in 247 major fields. There were 70 programs at the undergraduate level, 109 at the master’s level and 68 at the doctoral level.

The library resources of UP Diliman are the largest in the country. The total book and non-book collections number 1,170,723 volumes, which include books, pamphlets, bound periodicals, theses, dissertations, microforms and various multimedia titles. The serial collection totals 60,450 divided into 26,679 print titles and 33,771 unique titles in online journals. This collection has steadily grown through acquisitions and generous donations.

The Commission on Higher Education declared nine (9) U.P.D. units as Centers of Excellence as of 2009, currently the highest recognized by this agency.

The UP Diliman campus is also the site of the country's National Science Complex. Notable research units of UP Diliman centered at the National Science Complex include the Marine Science Institute (MSI), the National Institute of Geological Sciences (NIGS), the National Institute of Physics (NIP), the National Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology-Diliman (NIMBB-Diliman), and the National Institute for Science and Mathematics Education Development (NISMED), which are all pioneers of scientific research and development in the Philippines.

The university represents the UP System in the University Athletic Association of the Philippines. Its athletic teams, collectively called the Fighting Maroons, competes in various athletic competitions while its cheerdance group, the U.P. Pep Squad, represents the university in its annual UAAP Cheerdance Competition and also represented the country in various international cheerleading competitions.

History

The population of students continued to rise in succeeding years, reaching to 7,849 in 1928 from the initial 67 when the university was established in 1908. The need became apparent for UP to create more buildings and academic units, which would have been hampered by its small location in the heart of Manila. In 1939, the Board of Regents acquired a 493-hectare land in the Diliman District of the newly established Quezon City. Construction began on the area on the same year. The development of the area was then stalled by World War II, with invading Japanese troops occupying some of the buildings built. By 1942, the university was forced to close down some of its colleges, with only the Colleges of Medicine, Engineering, and Pharmacy maintaining their operations.

When the war ended in 1945, the buildings intended to be the homes of the College of Law and the College of Liberal Arts were left with extensive damages. The university administration led by UP President Bienvenido Gonzales sought a grant worth P13 million from the US-Philippines War Damage Commission to restore the damaged facilities and to construct new ones so that the transfer of the university from Manila to Diliman could be pushed through. Through a symbolic ceremony of transferring the Oblation from Manila to Diliman, the whole university's administration was relocated to the new campus. New buildings were constructed in response to the creation of more academic degrees.

Organization of the newly established institutes and the reformulation of programs followed with the establishment of programs such as the General Education Program, a delegated roster of core courses required to be taken by all students at the undergraduate level. Under the presidency of UP President Vicente Sinco, a University College was made to address the need of a much-organized college structure. The College of Arts and Sciences was created to offer major subjects in the natural sciences, social sciences and humanities.

By the end of Carlos P. Romulo's term as UP President in 1968, UP had also become not only an institution of education, but also a center of research, a veritable think tank, while many of its faculty served as advisers and consultants in the national government. Romulo's administration was marked by the establishment of the Population Institute, the Law Center and the Applied Geodesy and Photogrammetry Training Center in 1964, the Institute of Mass Communication (now College of Mass Communication), the College of Business Administration, and the Institute of Planning in 1965, the UP Computer Center, the Institute for Small-Scale Industries in 1966, the Institute of Social Work and Community Development in 1967 and the Asian Center in 1968.

UP Diliman became the bastion of activism in the 1960s and 1970s, with various tumultuous events eventually contributing to the declaration of Martial Law in 1972. In this period, UP Diliman became a center of dissent towards the administration. The year 1971 marked an important event in the Philippine history when the entire Diliman campus was declared the Diliman Commune, and became free from government control. Students and faculty members took over the campus in response to increasing military presence and the increase of oil prices. The students established full control of the campus for a month, barricading the streets with chairs and tables.

The university sustained its priorities of pushing for advancement in education despite the political unrest during the 1970s. Under the leadership of UP President Salvador P. Lopez, UP Diliman was given part of the P150 million grant from the national budget to improve infrastructure. It funded the construction of the buildings for the College of Business Administration, Zoology, the Institute of Small-Scale Industries, the Transport Training Center and the Coral Laboratory of the Marine Sciences Institute.

The Management Review Committee (MRC) was created by UP President Edgardo Angara in the 1980s to evaluate and recommend measures for the university's improvement. The report made by the MRC led to the decision of the Board of Regents to further decentralize the UP administration, declaring UP Diliman an autonomous unit and the system's flagship university on March 23, 1983. This also furthered the reorganization of some major units of the university, with the College of Arts and Sciences being split into three colleges: the College of Science, the College of Arts and Letters and the College of Social Sciences and Philosophy.

By the turn of the new millennium, UP Diliman led other universities with the installation of a fiber-optic network linking the different colleges in the campus. The Diliman Network, or DilNet, became the university's access point to the internet. Recently and with the help of the Quezon City government, the University of the Philippines entered into contracts with various entities to maximize the use of several leasable land assets in the UP Diliman campus. One example of which is the U.P.-Ayala Land TechnoHub

Campus

U.P. Diliman has a total land area of 493 hectares (1,220 acres). Much of this property is utilized by the university in the form of infrastructure and research facilities, while the remaining area is forested, reserved for development and residential use, or unoccupied.

The main campus, the science and technology parks located on the eastern and western sides of the university, and the residential (Area 2) and Barangay U.P. Campus communities stretching from the western side to the northern tip of the university comprise the areas most actively used by U.P.D.

Infrastructure development has been ongoing on campus in the last three years as part of two major programs: the National Science Complex (NSC) and the Engineering Research and Development Technology (ERDT) Consortium.

In a bid to boost initiatives in the sciences and technology, former Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo established the NSC through Executive Order 583 on 8 December 2006 to be administered and operated by the College of Science. Some ₱2 billion was allocated to the program to increase research and technological capacity in the country. Of that amount, ₱1.7 billion was earmarked for the construction of the NSC; in particular, the completion of the buildings for the National Institute of Physics and the Institute of Mathematics. It also funded the construction of buildings for the Institute of Chemistry, the Institute of Biology, the National Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, the Institute of Environmental Science and Meteorology and the College of Science Administration buildings.

The ERDT, on the other hand, is a 10-year program that seeks, among others, to attain “a critical mass of MS and PhD graduates in engineering; upgrade the qualifications of practicing engineers; provide accessible graduate education; upgrade engineering colleges; and develop a culture of research & development.”

The ERDT is implemented by a consortium of seven (7) universities in the country offering Master’s and Doctoral degrees in the various engineering fields. As part of the program, funds have enabled the construction of the following buildings for the units under the U.P.D. College of Engineering, namely: Chemical Engineering, Electrical and Electronics Engineering Institute, Institute of Civil Engineering; Mining, Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, Industrial Engineer/Mechanical Engineering, and Energy and Environmental Engineering.

The Oblation and Academic Oval

The U.P. Diliman campus is connected to Commonwealth Avenue via the University Avenue. It stretches 800 meters (2,600 ft) where traffic enters the campus, or proceeds towards C.P. Garcia St., which connects Commonwealth Avenue to Katipunan Avenue. At the end of University Avenue, the Oblation Plaza of the Diliman campus faces the road. Behind it, the facade of Quezon Hall can be seen.

The Oblation statue (Tagalog: Pahinungod/Oblasyon) is the most iconic figure of the U.P. System. The statue was originally created by National Artist Guillermo E. Tolentino in 1935 in a collective effort by the students of the U.P. System. During the 40th anniversary of the University of the Philippines, the Oblation was transferred to Diliman in Quezon City from their original site along Padre Faura St. in Manila as a symbol of transfer of administrative seat. The Oblation was originally naked and made of concrete and stands 3.5 meters (11 ft) in height. For morality and censorship purposes, U.P. President Jorge Bocobo suggested to put a fig leaf to cover the genitals. In 1950, the Board of Regents ordered the statue to be cast in true bronze. Tolentino made a trip to Italy to personally supervise the casting of his old masterpiece into bronze. The bronze statue, unveiled on 29 November 1958, is now housed at Gonzalez Hall where the University Library is also located.

Several replicas of Tolentino's Oblation statue were created during the creation of new U.P. campuses, some were made by the National Artist Napoleon Abueva. U.P. Diliman's Oblation statue located in the Oblation Plaza is also a concrete-made replica of Tolentino's.

The main and largest road in the university is the Academic Oval, informally known as "Acad Oval." This road is composed of two joining avenues, the Roxas andOsmeña Avenues. Having a total circumference of about 2.2 kilometers (1.4 mi), the oval connects the rest of the colleges of the university from the main University Avenue. The avenue derives its name from several colleges located around it, namely the College of Mass Communication, College of Music, College of Engineering, College of Law, School of Economics, College of Business Administration, College of Education, College of Social Sciences and Philosophy and School of Library and Information Studies. The oval also covers Quezon Hall, the U.P. Theater, National Engineering Center, Student Activity Center/Vinzons Hall, Center for International Studies and Jorge B. Vargas Museum. Additionally, the Academic Oval is planted with over 500 acacia and fire trees.

The Alumni Walk was launched in U.P.’s centennial year in 2008. A project of the UPD administration under then Chancellor Sergio S. Cao, the project sought to transform the inner sidewalk of the Academic Oval into a tile-paved footpath with commemorative slabs bearing UPD alumni-donors’ names, and whose donations went to the UPD Faculty Development Fund. On March 2008, however, the Academic Oval was turned into one-way in order to lessen traffic volume entering the university. According to then Vice Chancellor for Community Affairs Cynthia Grace Gregorio, the policy also promotes lessening air pollution by creating biking lanes on the inner side of the circle.

Administration

U.P. Diliman is the fourth oldest and is the largest, in terms of student population, of all the seven (7) major campuses of the University of the Philippines. The University of the Philippines is governed by the Board of Regents' 11 members, of whom five are ex officio, three are student, faculty, and staff representatives, and three are appointed by the President of the Philippines. Each campus of the University of the Philippines is headed by a chancellor. The first chancellor of U.P. Diliman was Senator Edgardo J. Angara, whose office was created on 26 April 1982. The chancellor is assisted by five vice chancellors — for academic affairs, administration, community affairs, research & development, and student affairs. The current chancellor is Dr. Michael Tan, who was appointed by the Board of Regents into position during its meeting on 27 February 2014.

Apart from heading the university, the chancellor also holds administrative duties that represent the Board of Regents at the campus level. The chancellor also serves as chairperson of the university council, an internal coordinating body composed of the chancellor himself, the university registrar who serves as secretary, and the professorial faculty. The vice chancellor for academic affairs, on the other hand, assists the chancellor in coordinating curricular, instructional, library, and other programs of the university. The vice chancellor for administration assists the chancellor in the administrative management of the campus. The vice chancellor for community affairs assists the chancellor in promoting relationships within the university and in dealing with local government and safety issues, while the vice chancellor for research & development assists the chancellor in formulating guidelines and criteria for the university's research and development endeavors. Finally, the vice chancellor for student affairs assists the chancellor in promoting wellness and discipline among students in areas such as health, food services, and scholarship management.

Colleges and Institutes

The academic arms of the university are called colleges, institutes, or schools. A number of colleges and schools offer a variety of undergraduate, graduate, and diploma programs, while some offer programs only within a specific field. Most institutes offer no degrees, but provide research facilities for academic development.

Each college or school is headed by a dean, who is appointed by the U.P. Board of Regents upon the recommendation of the chancellor and the president of the university. The dean acts as the head of the faculty of his college and assumes administrative duties assigned by the Board. The dean has a tenure of three years, which may be extended for up to two terms upon reappointment. The associate dean, on the other hand, assists the dean in the administration of the unit. The tenure of the associate dean is determined by the Board of Regents upon the recommendation of the chancellor and the dean.

Some of U.P. Diliman's academic arms assume the title of "Institute" (such as the Asian Institute of Tourism, and the Institute of Islamic Studies) and function as their own units, with their own departments. Some institutes are within colleges (such as the Institute of Civil Engineering within the College of Engineering). Some of U.P. Diliman's academic arms also assume the title of "School" (such as the School of Economics), which might function independently and have their own departments or which may operate as a unit within a particular college.

U.P. Diliman's institutes are headed by institute directors, who assume the duties assigned by the chancellor. Each director has a tenure of three years, which may be extended for up to two terms upon the reappointment of the chancellor. A director cannot not be an academic head of any department or division under his institute. Each college or school is composed of clusters of institutes or departments.

The university's departments are headed by department chairs, who assume the duties assigned by the dean and the chancellor. Each chair is appointed by the chancellor, as recommended by the dean or institute director, and has a tenure of three years, which may be extended for up to two terms upon reappointment.

Some units of the university are known as National Institutes, such as the National Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology. The status of being an institute is determined by the Board of Regents, but recognition as a national institute is governed by Philippine legislation. The head of a national institute, also the director, is not appointed by the chancellor but by the president of the university.

U.P. Diliman is composed of 26 colleges, schools, and institutes. Officially, these are called degree-granting units.The oldest of these colleges is the College of Fine Arts, established in 1908 and originally located in Manila. On the other hand, the first college to operate on the Diliman campus is the College of Music (then Conservatory of Music) in 1949.

Grading System and Academic Calendar

Academic performance is rated from 1.00 being excellent to 5.00 as failed. Grades from 1.00 to 3.00 are separated by increments of 0.25, while 3.00 is followed immediately by 4.00 and then 5.00. Some professors use 0.50 as increments instead, and some colleges, particularly the College of Engineering do not give 4.00 grades. A grade of four (4.00) is a conditional grade and a student needs to remove the grade of 4.00 during a prescribed period (usually determined by the college where he/she is enrolled) or else it will become 5.00 once the period has lapsed. A conditional grade can only be removed by a removal exam; if the student passes the exam, he/she will obtain a grade of 3.00, otherwise it is 5.00. An alternative for 4.00 is the rating of "INC", which means incomplete, and is given to students who have unfinished requirements for a particular subject. If a student drops the subject before the "subject dropping period" his/her record for that subject will be replaced by "DRP".

Students who attain a grade point average of 1.20 or better, 1.45 to 1.20, and 1.75 to 1.45 are awarded upon graduation as summa cum laude, magna cum laude and cum laude respectively. Up until 2014, graduation occurred every April and October, with commencement exercises being held only in April. The shift in the academic calendar moved graduation dates to June and December, with commencement exercises being done only during the month of June. U.P. Diliman had an average of 3,190 undergraduate, 627 MS graduate and 73 Ph.D. students graduating every year. The most number of honor graduates came from the College of Social Sciences and Philosophy, followed by the College of Business Administration, College of Engineering, College of Mass Communication and College of Architecture.

The academic year is divided into two semesters, each having at least 16 weeks, excluding the registration period. The first semester starts in August and ends in December, followed by the Christmas holidays. The second semester starts in January, with a semestral break during the Holy Week. There is a short mid-year term from June to July.

Accreditation

The Commission on Higher Education identifies U.P. Diliman as "Center of Excellence" in ten (10) disciplines, namely information technology, anthropology, biology,chemistry, geology, marine science, mathematics, molecular biology, physics, political science, and statistics. As part of the University of the Philippines System, U.P. Diliman is also considered as an SUC and the only national university of the Philippines. The nature of the University of the Philippines put it in a position where it does not need any accreditation by any other local body.