DESPITE the enhanced community quarantine in Luzon, life at UP Manila continued with the shift to alternative, creative, and innovative strategies in the conduct of teaching, research, and extension activities. Although all classes, including online and/or remote ones were suspended, learning activities in UPM did not stop. From the confines of their homes, apartments, condos, and dormitories, faculty members reached out to their peers and students, administrators to their staff and workers, and students to their classmates and teachers. Despite the anxieties, difficulties, and uncertainties experienced by various sectors due to the COVID-19 pandemic, everyone took steps to be productive and contribute to the efforts of various sectors and communities in combatting COVID-19.
Creativity, innovation, and resourcefulness became the norms that guided the behaviors of the constituents, whether in the field of teaching, research, and extension. Indeed, necessity is the mother of invention. Faculty members revised their course syllabi, shared resource materials on alternative teaching platforms, and attended teleconferences and webinars to enhance their capabilities on online teaching modalities. Some extended various forms of material, psychosocial, and spiritual support to their students, colleagues, staff, and the health sector; and even volunteering in the UP-PGH Bayanihan Na! COVID-19 Operations Center.
Others offered their professional and technical expertise to the Department of Health (DOH) and Commission on Higher Education (CHED). Researchers and scientists of UPM, meanwhile, conducted studies on the different aspects of COVID-19, produced products like testing kits, gadgets, and equipment aimed at preventing the further spread of the virus and mitigating its impact on peoples and communities; and participated in actual testing and processing of test results. Students, on the other hand, assisted the frontliners, volunteered as call center agents or in organizing donations received at the Operations Center. Others have been vigilant in voicing their views and positions on some of highly questionable policies and actions taken by the government in response to the COVID-19 crisis.
It is said that crises bring out the best in us. The images, experiences, and actions we have witnessed since the onslaught of the virus reveal that there is truth to this statement. In the midst of the inadequacies and weaknesses of individuals and agencies expected to lead and guide the way, we have remained steadfast in our struggle to defeat and overcome the virus, consistent with our moniker and image as Iskolar ng Bayan.
Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Nymia Simbulan, DrPH
Published in Healthscape Special COVID-19 Issue No. 3
