In our core curriculum and study of the classics in Ateneo, we learned that heroes were mainly ordinary people who were willing to pursue their dreams and beliefs despite their deficiencies and overwhelming obstacles that faced them often at every turn. Their persistence and often eventual sacrifice is what raised them to be heroes, and not spectacular superhuman feats. Its easy to do this if you are invulnerable to most everything and have extraordinary super powers.

Some may not subscribe to the vision and goals of these real heroes, but all cannot but admire and marvel at their willingness to pursue and give sacrifice towards the attainment of these goals.  History will also act as a sieve to determine who these people were.

This year marks the 40th year of the First Quarter Storm (FQS).  To start off the commemoration of the anniversary, yesterday, January 26, 2010, the FQS Movement and the City of Manila under Mayor Alfredo Lim unveiled a marker at Plaza Bustillos in Sampaloc to honor our classmate (Class ‘71) Edgar Jopson, who was also our student council president at Ateneo.  He is also the father of a scholar from our first batch, Noynoy Jopson.

These are the names inscribed at the Bantoyog ng Bayani (Wall of Heroes) located beside the NAPOCOR Compound at the corner of Quezon Avenue and EDSA - Sonny Hizon, Jun Celestial, Raul Manglapus, Fr. Ortiz, Manny Yap, Abe Sarmiento, Evelio Javier, Emman Lacaba, Ferdie Arceo, Billy Begg. The courtyard is a silent, empty place where few people visit, watched over by a statue raising her hand to heaven in a silent plea. These people’s efforts are recognized as having influenced the course of Philippine History.

Let us be proud to say that we have not only walked but also played (during our childhood),  grown up with them and studied with these people who to us were just ordinary schoolmates or mentors but who have been raised by the nation as its new batch of HEROES.

Lito Nazareno 

As parents, we all have some measure of belief in tough love.  We act, not based on our children’s feelings but based on their well-being.  We make choices not to please our children but to benefit them.  These are two very different things and depending on your perspective as a parent, they may or may not be mutually exclusive.

For those of us (and note that I do say us, to include myself) who think that feelings and well-being can go together, we factor children’s personalities and preferences into our decisions.  They have a say in where we go, what we eat, what they wear, how they spend their time.  We impress upon them that there are certain obligations they can’t escape, e.g. visiting their grandparents, but we do give them some liberty in dictating the terms of those obligations, e.g. how long they’re willing to stay.  We listen to them when they disagree.  We apologize when we make a mistake.  We set bounds, and for as long as they stay within those bounds, we’re fine.

There’s a school of thought, though, that does not give any quarter.  I once overheard one of my elders giving advice to another parent: Never admit that you’re wrong!  To her, parenting meant absolute power.  Giving any quarter was a sign of weakness.  To consider your children’s feelings was to open yourself up to manipulation.  You should stand your ground, even when your three year-old says, “I don’t like you!” And you should only give your children what you think is good for them, never what they want (even when they’re 40!).

I guess there is some logic to the position.  You wouldn’t let a child near a hot stove, for instance.  This is why parents are parents–because they are supposed to know better.  Yes, the logic holds, but only up to a point, and that point is when your children start having greater and more accurate discernment of what in fact their own best interests are.  This is parents’ cue to begin seeing their children as people with their own good sense and respecting what it is that their children’s judgment as to what it is they really need.

Today marks the first day of the open houses.  These are events in which we introduce the Ateneo to those who passed the ACET, in a push to convince them to join us in June.  To some of us, this is when the institutional marketing push begins.  In truth, though, recruitment is an ongoing process that never ends. 

Recruitment can take place deliberately, through recruitment talks.  During the first semester, the Office of Admission and Aid invites members of the faculty to go on recruitment campaigns all over the country.  The OAA has a standard script, a video, even a list of FAQs.  Although the OAA has officers who do the rounds, they strongly encourage faculty to be the institution’s mouthpieces because, in our students’ universes, the faculty is pretty much God in the classroom. Students may never speak to a Dean or even a Department Chair, but they will always, always come face-to-face with faculty.   By presenting the faculty early on, prospective students get a sense of whether this is the kind of person they want defining the next four or five years of their lives.

Recruitment also takes place as a side-effect. I remember folks from the Psychology Department telling me that many of ther graduate students are convinced to come to the Ateneo after listening to a public lecture by one of our Psyche faculty.  It dawns on them that, yes, I do want to learn from this person, work with this person. Recruitment-by-side-effect also takes place in the form of summer camps. Various departments offer summer workshops in their disciplines.  We at DISCS, for instance, offer a game development camp.  The immediate goal is to develop specific target skills among participants, but in so doing, you do end up hoping that you plant a seed of affinity and affection for the Ateneo, and that in a few years’ time, a participant’s name will reappear on a list of accepted college applicants.

There was a time when the Ateneo wasn’t very deliberate about recruitment.  The open houses, if memory serves, are a fairly recent phenomena.  I’m going to guess that it was only in the last decade or so that they became fashionable.  Why?  Because competition for the best talent has gotten much tougher.  We lose some of the best talent, not just to UP or DLSU, but to schools abroad such as NUS and Harvard.  The playing field is international.

From the Computer Science perspective, specifically, enrollment in information technology-related courses has dropped dramatically since the 1990s.  In 2003-2004, we had 211 students.  In 2007-2008, we had 121.  Although our population increased to 156 in 2009, we’re no where near our dotcom boom days.  This is not good news for local industries whose thirst for IT expertise is unquenchable.  Neither is this good news for faculty with teaching loads to complete.

I recruit for the Ateneo both directly and indirectly because I believe in the Ateneo as an educational product.  I think students can do a lot worse locally and internationally.  Much lower on Maslow’s hierarchy, though, my motivations are simple: No students means no job, and I happen to like my job.

Catch you all later.

Originally posted in My Manila on September 13, 2009

NB: I took these pictures in the summer of 2009. During the launch of the Sesquicentennial in Intramuros on June 14, 2009, these statues were hidden behind the backdrop of the stage at the San Ignacio ruins. I have not been back to Intramuros since then and I don’t know if the statues are still there.

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The Spanish conquistadores who conquered the Philippines in the 16th century arrived with Catholic missionaries and through three hundred years of colonial rule firmly established the Philippines as the only predominantly Roman Catholic country in Asia until the independence of East Timor in 2002. This group of badly damaged and neglected sculptures in front of the ruins of the San Ignacio Church in Intramuros represents the first five Catholic religious orders that arrived in the country. The sign posts are decorated with each order’s symbols but the plaques describing them are long gone. When the Intramuros Administration rebuilds the San Ignacio into a museum, I hope they also rebuild the statues and the plaques.

1. Augustinians
Fray Andres de Urdaneta and four other Augustinians landed in the province of Cebu on April 27, 1565 after sailing to the Philippines from Mexico with Miguel Lopez de Legazpi himself. The first Augustinian mission house in Manila was established in 1571. (Source: Augnet)

2. Franciscans
The Ordo Fratrum Minorum (OFM), the First Order of Franciscans, Friars Minor, arrived in Manila on July 2, 1578. (Source: OFM Archives Philippines)

3. Jesuits
First arrived in 1581, expelled in 1768 as a result of the suppression of the Jesuits in Europe in 1767, and returned to Manila in 1859. (Source: Ateneo de Manila University)

4. Dominicans
The first fifteen missionaries of the Dominican Order, also known as the Order of Preachers (OP), arrived from Spain by way of Mexico on July 21, 1587. (Source: OP Holy Rosary Province)

5. Recollects
The volunteers of the Order of Augustinian Recollects (OAR), also known as Discalced Augustinians because of their practice of walking barefoot and who follow a more austere and ascetic lifestyle than their other Augustinian brethren, boarded a ship in Cadiz, Spain in July 1605 and arrived in the province of Cebu in May 1606. By 1608, they had a priory in the walled city of Intramuros. (Source: Recoletos Communications)

The end of the school year is nigh and for high school juniors, that means one thing: PROM!  My parents, for various social and political convictions, did not allow me to go to my prom, so depending on your point of view, I was either deprived of or spared from this experience.  It is with great interest, therefore, that I watch the wide-screen, high-def, multiperspective teenage drama that is the search for a prom date unfold before me.

The boys have it bad, especially when they come from an all-boys’ school.   A boy I recently met was cajoling his parents into visiting his intended date’s parents on a Sunday, just to get acquainted. His mom’s reaction was, “Ano yan, pamanhikan?”  Her son replied, “What’s that?”  There’ve been cases in which boys send girls gifts within gifts–their version of a Matriyoshka doll.  The last and smallest gift contains a sheet of paper with one question: Will you be my prom date?  Still others take a more action-adventure approach.  There was one scenario when a boy pretended to rescue his intended date from another guy, using the high emotions (kuno) as a springboard for asking her to the prom.

Prom is a production, and if you think the boys are stressed, wait until you meet the parents (and aunts and female cousins…).  We’re all chomping at the bit, just waiting to intervene.  We follow up, we give advice, we head off potential social faux pas.  Boys have no idea, for example, just how long it takes for a girl to get ready for such a big night. My nephew was aghast that “they buy a new dress just for prom?!”  Yes, Sweetie, girls are crazy that way. So no, you can’t ask her the night before.

If it’s any consolation, boys, the girls are stressed, too.  You probably don’t know this, but they are hoping you’ll ask and are always flattered when you do.   In this day and age of gender equaliy, that might not be an appropriate thing to say, but let’s be honest:  If it’s ego-deflating for guys to be rejected, it’s also ego-crushing for girls to realize they don’t even merit a blip on the social radar (All together now: I knew the truth at seventeen, that love was meant for beauty queens…).  Tension runs high on both sides of the gender fence.

The funny thing is, I don’t think the tension never really goes away.  I recently witnessed a much younger male friend of mine fretting over how to ask a girl out.  I wanted to say, “Anak, this is just coffee, not marriage.”  But that’s just me giving advice from the peanut gallery.

Best of luck to everyone preparing for prom.  Have a great time!

A couple of weeks ago, I gave my grad class specifications for a paper that they had to submit.  One of my students asked, “Should it be publishable?”  The question surprised me, in large part because this person was in a non-thesis course. There was a time when our grad students (and some of our faculty) didn’t even know want publication meant.  Perhaps the question indicates a cultural change, a growing awareness of the need to put your work out there for your peers to scrutinize. 

Her impression was that it was difficult to get published. This impression is correct, but not for the reasons she might think.  Publication is impossible for people who don’t have anything significant to say.  Within the sciences, you need to perform some kind of study.  In the creative arts, Maam Beni Santos and I were discussing how artists begin with a long “feeding” process–interacting with people, seeing the world–to build up a critical mass of raw material from which to create.  If you never do a study or if you don’t feed yourself, you don’t have anything to write about, ergo, there’s nothing to publish.

The second reason publishing is difficult is because some people can’t write themselves out of a paper sack.  I love my students and I have a soft spot for those who work closely with me, but I have to say some of the writing I receive leaves me in tears.  The work they complete is substantive, but they can’t communicate it.  If you can’t write, again, there’s nothing to publish. 

Assuming for the moment that students have the substance and the form, is it difficult to get published?  Yes and no.  Publication is not binary;  it has levels.  There are greater and lesser journals, greater and lesser conferences. There are some publication or presentation venues with no barriers to entry at all. They accept anything that is submitted and therefore these don’t really “count” as publication.  The term is “grey literature”–i.e. presentations that aren’t strictly peer-reviewed and, if accepted, are not indexed and cannot be referenced in the future.  You would submit to these venues for the practice. If you or your mentees are publishing for the first time, then these venues provide gentle initiations into the process.  Also, it is possible that these venues provide you with exposure to the local communities of practice. They are good venues for engaging in conversation with like-minded individuals in your own geographic area.

There are other publications and conferences that try to impose some quality standards.  They might peer-review the submissions. Truth is they have more slots than they can fill, so pretty much anything except the most heinous or glaringly out-of-scope contributions are accepted.

Some submissions are accepted for political reasons.  Perhaps the contributor is a friend of the editor-in-chief (oh, yes, it happens).  Perhaps the contributor is someone that the the editor wants to “develop”. Instead of rejecting the contribution outright, the editor sends the contributor copious notes about how the article can be improved.  If the contributor resubmits to the reviewers’ satisfaction, then the paper is accepted.  If not, the contributor has opted out of the process altogether.

Some works are commissioned outright.  Authors may have reputations for work in a specific area or they might be simply known for willingness and reliability.  In either case, something needs to be written, editors or publishers invite the writers, and the writers deliver. If these submissions are vetted at all, are they are not vetted as extensively as an unsolicited manuscript.

Finally, there’s publication in its purest form: the substantive, well-written unsolicited manuscript with no political strings attached, submitted to a high-quality conference or journal.  How do you know if a conference or journal is high-quality?  Check the rejection rate.  The rule of thumb I follow is that if a conference rejects at least 2/3 of submissions, then peer-review is acceptably strict.  For journals, typically you would see where the journal is indexed, if at all. Scopus and ISI are the gold standards for indexing.  (Some people would argue that even within Scopus and ISI listings, not all journals are equal in quality standards, but let’s not get into that now.)

The simple answer to my student’s question was no, I wasn’t asking for a publishable paper. However, I’ve seen the publication process as author, reviewer, editor, and editorial board member, and given how broad the concept of publication is, what is publishable is what gets published and almost anything can get published.  Let’s keep our eye on the goal here:  I am asking for a paper that is good, operationalized as substantive and well-written.  That should be the goal, regardless of where the paper ends up.

My colleague, Ryan Baker,  was illustrating to me how ruthless the research culture can be.  A student approached his adviser with first semester grades. They were all A’s and B’s.  Instead of being happy, the adviser said, “You’re spending too much time on your subjects and not enough time in the lab.  Next semester, I want to see C’s and D’s.”  In other words, keep your eye on the ball: your research practice. Nothing else matters.

I found myself giving the same advice to several of my prize undergraduates today.  Most of them have stellar QPIs and are nowhere near failing.  They’re too well-rounded, I think, and as a consequence, they missed the first deadline of the two conferences we were targeting.  Fortunately, said deadlines were extended. This afternoon, I went into the lab and brought put as much pressure as I could without getting violent. ”Just do enough in your other subjects to pass,” I said.  “Let’s get these papers submitted!”

Of course, they laughed. They know I didn’t mean it…sorta.  They know that there’s more to an Ateneo education than conference participation–which explains why I catch them studying for Philo in the computer lab–and I know these particular students are genetically incapable of letting their grades slide just for a publication. 

There are days, though, when I wish they could or would.  In the movie Under the Tuscan Sun, the character of the eccentric, aging Italian film acress has a line that goes something like, “We have to live our lives spherically–in many directions at once.” That’s what we’re teaching our students to do. But living spherically is exhausting.  There are only so many hours in the day, and our students only so much fire in their bellies.  Are we doing our students a disservice by pulling them in many directions at once?  Would the most merciful course of action be to allow them to focus?  Are we being cruel by splintering their attention, something that is already in short supply?

Or is this what we mean by Magis?

Photos originally posted in My Manila on December 6 & 7, 2009

Have you been to the Sacred Heart Chapel of the Church of the Gesù lately? I visited last December and was wonderfully surprised by its transformation from two or three years ago, which was the last time I attended a Mass there.

Notice how the monstrance is incorporated into the crucifix, and how its design echoes the sunburst in the Jesuit seal.

The stained glass panel with the image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus is against an interior wall, so there’s a light bulb behind it to simulate sunlight shining through a window.

I didn’t have time last year to ask around the community for information about the artists of the altar piece and the stained glass, so if any of you have information, I’d really appreciate it if you would leave a comment.

I don’t usually blog in the middle of the day but today has been so intense that I need an outlet.

There are a couple of conferences that are coming up in about one week’s time.  One is national, one international.  I have four sets of students trying to beat the deadlines and I am caught in the middle.  (I was hoping that more would submit. There were supposed to be seven papers in preparation in all.  One group backed out because of workload.  The other two said they would submit but I haven’t heard from them, despite repeated reminders.  We shall see soon enough if silence means no.)

I told my students early on that these conferences were among our targets.   I also told them early on to submit to me as early as possible because I have to edit the papers, often repeatedly, before we send them out to the world.  However, the students who work with me are genuinely busy.  The grad students typically work full-time.  The undergrads under me are officers in orgs and are generally high-performing students who don’t let their grades slide.  So, submissions to me started coming in last weekend.

Editing each paper varies in difficulty.  Some of my students write well and only require a minimum of editing.  Others write with great difficulty. They know what they want to say but they fumble with words and grammar.  Still others are still learning the content as well as the writing, and these are the most challenging to correct.  There’s often a temptation to keep feedback simple:  REWRITE!  But if I do that, I may never get these kids to publish.  So I cut, I reword, I rewrite whole paragraphs, sometimes whole sections.  (Thank God for Word’s track changes feature.  I could never do this in longhand.)  I send back the papers bleeding.

One of my students said he felt discouraged whenever he saw his paper shot full of red corrections and yellow highlighted text.  Hey, at least I care, right?  Blame it on cura personalis.  Blame it also on the whole eloquentia schtick.  Most of all, blame it on the fact that you have done the work.  You have the goods. If you didn’t, I wouldn’t even bother and there are many cases when I have not bothered.  You have something to say, say it and say it well.

Twelve big gifts from alumni batches in the Philippines and abroad made Ateneo’s One Big Night and Grand Alumni Homecoming on December 12, 2009 a homecoming to remember.

The community gives special thanks to the following jubilarian classes and alumni groups and individuals for their generous contributions given on the occasion of the Ateneo’s Sesquicentennial:

* Ateneo Alumni Association
* Ateneo Alumni Association Cebu Chapter
* Ateneo Alumni Association Davao Chapter
* Ateneo Alumni Association La Union Chapter
* Ateneo Alumni Association Metro Washington DC Chapter
* Golden Jubilarian Class GS ‘59
* Golden Jubilarian Class HS ‘59
* Golden Jubilarian Class Coll ‘59
* Ruby Jubilarian Class GS ‘69
* Pearl Jubilee Class Coll ‘79
* Silver Jubilarian Class Coll ‘84
* HS ‘95