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| USPian alumnus Dr. Alburo (AB Class of '66) graces the Don Agustin M. Jereza Memorial Lecture as keynote speaker. |
2013 Don Agustin Jereza Memorial Lecture
Dr. Florian A. Alburo
I do not intend to recount Don Agustin Jereza’s life, his journey
in founding USP
from
a small college to what it is today. This had been adequately and eloquently given in past memorial lectures besides my being unable to match the adequacy with whichtheytracked our founder’s life. I may be able to give some snippets of
Don
Agustin Jereza from a vantage point of personal experiences but they simply
give added color not re-shape what the others have delivered.
I will take a different tack. I will develop a framework
with which to look at what Don Agustin Jereza founded and situate him in that framework.
I propose to do
the
following.
First, I will argue that the formative
years in a person’s life are not only essential, not
only
critical, but
a necessary though not sufficient condition for
what he or she eventually becomes. Here the important component is what I would call the learning environment. Here I
ask the question – what was USP like in
a person’s formative years? I will have to ask your indulgence as
I deviate into personal musings if only to support my argument. This won’t be a long digression so please bear with me and don’t open your cell phones to
check on messages.
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I will then go into the meat of my lecture and hypothesize that USP as founded
by Don
Agustn
Jereza
belongs to
what
is
now commonly
known as the knowledge industry. This industry
is quite unique among all goods and services industries and I will briefly explain why this is so. The more important argument I
propose to make is that there are a number of factors that define the quality
of knowledge products. For each of those, and for sure they are not exhaustive, I
will cast along what Don Agustin Jereza made of them – and I invoke my
personal experiences.
In the third part I will admit that my arguments
rely mostly in the past, my past –
and
those of fellow alums. I can not speak for the present or the future. I leave the present to those who are here, are actually studying here, imbibing USP’s life
and
being involved in it. Today’s environment characterized by technology can be harnessed in the sense of either easing the constraints imposed on how past knowledge products were fashioned or avoiding its deadweights in the future. To put my message in perspective I will bring you from USP to UP (without the S) – to my class and how we maximize technology-use
and
minimize its negative effects.
Finally, I will close by suggesting
that
in today’s expanding knowledge industry USP’s niche remains as close to what its founder had envisioned it to be and keep the strengths it has accumulated.
