 higher education engagement. When one talks about the University of the Philippines, one thinks of academic excellence, and that is so. But one asks, where is the community in all of this? So in the next few minutes, I'd like to talk about ethical responsibility and ethical practice in community higher education engagement. The UP system is made up of different campuses, constituent universities as they are called, and we are now in the UP system looking at our various functions and responsibilities. In UP Dileman, the College of Social Sciences and Philosophy is the third largest college in the UP Dileman and I would imagine also at the forefront of social sciences in the entire UP system. We talk about community engagement in one way ask, so what is community engagement? To quote, you see the Carnegie Community Engagement Classification System. This refers to the partnership of colleges and universities and their knowledge and resources with those of private and public sectors. What for? This is to enrich scholarship, research, and creative activity to enhance curriculum, teaching, and learning, to prepare educated and engaged citizens to strengthen democratic values and civic responsibility, to address critical issues, and to contribute to the public good. If we talk about scholarship, one would say scholarship is writing research publications, making sure that you're in the ISI and SCOPUS talking about impact factor. But let's go back to what Ernest Boyer said in the 70s. Also, coming from the Carnegie Studies, Ernest Boyer wrote a very important book entitled Scholarship Reconsidered. What did he say? Scholarship, he says, actually refer to four areas of scholarship. These are teaching, discovery, integration, and application, and engagement. What comes to mind when scholarship is mentioned is probably research. And this is by Boyer's classification, discovery. These answers the question, what is to be known? What is yet to be found? In addition to discovery, we also have teaching, which we are very familiar with. And teaching answers the question, what do we want to transmit, transform, and extend. But given all this information, what we know, what we have found, what we want to transmit and transform, what do all these mean? So this is where the scholarship of integration comes in. But beyond this, Boyer also says that we have to answer the question, how can knowledge be responsibly applied to consequential problems? So what if we have these findings? So what if we are able to convey this knowledge to our students? What do these mean? Not only for ourselves, but for the community around us, for society as a whole. And that is what Boyer has referred to as a scholarship of application, now more well known as the scholarship of engagement. With the UP as the case study, let's look at what UP stands for and how we can make sure that UP scholarship covers the four areas of classification according to Boyer. In the UP, we know that there is Republic Act number 9500, an act to strengthen the University of the Philippines as the national university. This is also known as the University of the Philippines Charter of 2008. What does it say? Let me pick out about three sections of the charter that are important to us today. First, we look at section three, which talks about the purpose of UP. It says, one, that we lead in setting academic standards and initiating innovations. Second, that we serve as graduate university. Third, that we serve as research university. And fourth, that we lead as public service university. In RA 9500, we also see section seven that talks about UP's commitment to national development and section eight that talks about social responsibility, meaning that we are committed to serve the Filipino nation and humanity. I said at the start that community and higher education engagement is an ethical responsibility. But what exactly does this mean? So talking about ethical responsibility, what is this? Calling from the State University of New York from their center for the recognition of experiential and academic learning, ethical responsibility is defined as, quote, the ability to recognize, interpret and act upon multiple principles and values according to the standards within a given field or context. So looking back at what UP is, then we're saying that really community and higher education engagement is our ethical responsibility. From the experience of the College of Social Science and Philosophy of the University of the Philippines, let me now take you to some examples of community CSSP engagement. We have what we call service learning classes or more clearly academic service learning classes. In these classes, we identify subjects where students serve in the community and there are two things that happen. One is that the community benefits from the service of the students. Second, that the students learn about not only what it means to be a good citizen, what it means to serve the community, but they learn about concepts in class. So the distinctive feature of service learning is that while students are actually working with the communities, are engaged with the community, they now are able to give real life examples of what they learn in their studies. I would tell my students in service learning classes now students are able to give examples of the concepts in class which are outside the textbook. These examples are from their own experience in the community. So if one were to talk about any concept, for instance, in my field in developmental psychology, if you talk about the goodness of fit in parenting and child rearing, then you would say, okay, in my interaction with parents in the community, I saw that some fathers interact with their children better than some mothers. And it is not because one or the other is better as a person or as a parent. It just so happens that perhaps the personality of the father matches the personality of one child so that that father might be better in interacting with child number two, but the mother is better at interacting with child number three because there is a better fit in the personality of the parent and the child. And the student says, okay, I'm able to serve because I am able to share concepts like that with the community. But now I also learned for a fact that this thing called goodness of fit actually happens. And it does work. This concept that came from another country is something that I can now say is also useful where we are. So that's just an example of service learning. Another example would be the National Service Training Program. And this is mandated by law. All our students are required to take the NSTP in the college. Our students go through two sessions of different modules where they talk about service and about the kinds of work that they can do based on their discipline. So by the second class, which is the second half of the six unit requirement, they're asked to come up with proposals where they can serve the community of choice within the purview of their academic discipline. So again, we see that there is a relationship between the discipline of the student and the type of service that the student extends to the community. The third would be the field extension classes. There are many classes and we talk about different forms of extension. We can talk about outreach. We can talk about on-the-job training. We can talk about practicum. But in this field extension classes, usually students would spend a considerable amount of time in a particular area. And this is where they interact with the community and help out in, again, two ways. One, sharing with the community what they know and for themselves, making sure that they understand the concepts and the methodologies correctly. In CSSP, during the University of the Philippines first awards for extension in UP Deliman, our department of geography was awarded first prize as outstanding extension service program. And what the geography department did was in line with the DRRM program, they went to communities and helped the communities come up with their maps. So these are not the ordinary flat maps. They made maps with the communities to indicate where the areas, the vulnerable areas were, where they could go for safety. And so it was an experiential learning, which was fun to the kids as well as to the adults. It afforded people in the community the opportunity to work together. And it afforded the students the chance to really understand what was going on and how to better explain to people in the community what was needed. But as importantly, they also learned from the community what the signals were that they would not have otherwise known if they just stayed on campus. Lastly, I'd like to share with you the Pahinungod volunteer program. Pahinungod is a Visayan term that has been used to refer to volunteerism. And there are programs wherein the different needs of communities are addressed through various volunteer programs. In the college, this is now one program where we link with our office of student affairs so that organizations are helped in managing volunteer systems. As we know, the different volunteer organizations in the country, and that is maybe the topic of an entirely different talk, extend their help to different universities and schools and also invite students to be part of the nationwide volunteer activity. So we talk about, or I talked about, volunteer work and extension programs and service learning and NSTP. And I'm saying that these are ethical responsibilities of people in the academy. But does it mean that if we do community engagement that we're being ethical? Is that an assurance that we're doing things right by the community? And I argue that it is important, it is imperative for us to look at the ethical principles for community higher engagement. So we ask ourselves, when we do community higher education engagement, is that an assurance that people are being ethical? And the answer is no. We have guidelines, we need guidelines. So in research, we have research ethics guidelines. In our clinical practice, we have clinical practice guidelines. And that's true as well for community higher education engagement. So what are the ethical principles for community higher education engagement? First, we have respect. Both parties unequal footing. And some would say, of course, that's how it should be. But really the challenge is in the implementation. And the first area where this might be challenged is in deciding what form of service the community needs and what form of service the academy can give. So I tell my students, it's not us telling them, this is our expertise. And you must feel privileged because you are, that we are working with your community. We must make sure that this is something that they need. And this is where respect and equal footing comes in. We have to listen and they have to tell us this is what we need. Do you have this expertise? So that if we don't, then we tell them, maybe we can refer you to another college or help someone else get that kind of training that you need. Second would be collaborative autonomy, active collaboration and shared decision making. Something that may be a challenge for people in the university, especially for students and scholars who think that they're the best in their own field. But really if we ask ourselves and I tell students in research classes as well, if you think that you have all the answers, so why on earth are you going to the field to ask questions? Doesn't that mean that there are answers you don't have? And therefore you go to people who have the answer. So that means that both parties have the expertise. Both parties have something to share and we have to work together so that we can make the best of the learning that we have from wherever we are. So that means active collaboration. That also means that we need to work together to find out who the stakeholders are in a community and in the higher education system, who has to know about what we want to do, who has to know about why we have to do what we're doing so that they can give us support as well. So when we come together then it's very important for the teams to be able to say this is what I think is wrong with that or that's not what I said. These are things that have to be reflected in every engagement that we take on. The third item would be transparency and this means open communication of positive and negative experiences between partners. Positive experiences, that's not really a problem. It's good to hear about good things. It feels good to hear about these things but again what might stop people from communicating or being transparent would be sharing negative experiences. Some say we're not very good at giving or receiving feedback and I would tend to agree with that which is why training is very important prior to community higher education engagement. We have to look at ourselves. Are we ready to take on comments from other people even if the comments might be a little different from what we would want to hear and are we able to give feedback in such a way that the person see that there is room for improvement rather than crushing the person so that the person doesn't want to work with us anymore or the person actually doesn't want to do anything anymore but that is important to be able to say I don't think this worked. We had thought that we would have 15,000 youth volunteers or we had thought that you know everybody would be interested in basketball but it turns out it's not that way so we asked ourselves what went wrong what else could we have done what do we see as an improvement because there is a part two and part three also if you're doing let's say a basketball clinic for young people in the community and the first clinic didn't work out so well what can we do the next time around and what do we learn from it but it's also very important to give a balanced view so this didn't work out but this thing worked out so let's make more of what worked out but that has to be said or if people think I didn't have a chance to participate some would even say I had wanted to be more participative but I didn't know that it was open to me I thought it was only for people with a higher rank or people who looked a certain way so it's important that we are able to make that kind of communication in the communities we sometimes we talk about having a Tulai or a bridge someone from the community who knows the academy and someone from the academy who also knows the community because there are questions that are quite difficult to ask in public openly so usually you would go to that person and say what exactly did that mean when this people when this person said this is that really what it sounded like because to me it sounded this way is that what it means and the person whom you trust says well actually you're right or actually there's a little difference in how it came across to you because this is what they were really saying so transparency is important if we are looking at a sustainable relationship between community and the academy and this can get tricky because at times they might have comments about the higher ups but again that's something that can be managed if we understand why we are sharing information that we are so lastly consent is important consent can be something that challenges both the people from higher education as well as people from community when you can say consent what is that a person says yes how difficult can that be that's just three letters but we talk about informed consent it means that I understand what I'm saying yes too and for me to be able to do that I have to know what exactly it is that you want me to do while you're here how long you're staying because I could say yes you're welcome in the community because I think that you're going to solve our problem on cooperatives you know but you're from another field so that's not really your area or if this is like service learning this is a one semester program so it's not really for a long term but then they say you know we really need someone we have to be able to say that at this point this is what we're able to commit so that they can actually say yes this is what I am able to offer this is what my class is able to offer and we hope that we can work together so that we achieve the goals that we set together for ourselves the other thing about consent is that we also need to take the culture into consideration if we are to look at western journals in the main they would insist on written signed consent forms that is not this workable in general but there are some instances where it might defeat the purpose so if this is a community where oral tradition is the practice and you insist that we will continue only if you sign this rather than assuring the person that you know things are safe and secure it might actually raise doubts so we have to ask ourselves what's the best way to show that this is something that is not an imposition something that they understand and something that they agree with the consent process is also important so if I were to bring my class to the field then I am to make sure that there is the opportunity for my students to say yes or no and for the community to say yes or no so one thing that we tell people when we go to the field for consent is don't give incentives that makes it difficult for people to say no they should be able to say yes or no so we don't promise them a kavan of rice for something for their participation when we know that there's fans something like that very very generally okay or that they don't get prices or that they get prices okay if they say yes and the prices are very difficult to come by okay so lastly benefit realistic benefits it's very tempting to promise the world not the people we work with with our sense of responsibility but we have to know from the onset before we actually engage with the community what benefits will accrue to both the community and to ourselves okay so in the end I'm saying that community higher education engagement is doing good and it is also doing scholarship