Multiversities, not Pogos

When I was a young faculty member of the University of the Philippines Diliman’s Department of Political Science in the early 1980s, I would join several other professors from the College of Education, Business Administration, and Social Sciences to travel to UP Clark every Wednesday after lunch to offer several courses primarily to American military officers, servicemen, and their families. After our classes, we’d return to Diliman in the evening.

While the UP Extension Program in Pampanga seemed to be a solid, reputable institution then, many people didn’t realize there was no dedicated college building; we held classes in several classrooms borrowed from Wagner High School. At that time, having access to hamburgers, milkshakes, and fries was already quite an incentive for our assorted faculty, many of whom reminisced about their lives as graduate students in American universities.

That was all that was needed for several years to provide a significant academic service and presence to fill a gap. That was the beginning of what is now a well-established and thriving UP Clark.

This reminiscing came to mind as I drooled over the 10-hectare mixed commercial-residential compound consisting of 36 buildings in Bamban, Tarlac, designed apparently as a platform for a diverse set of criminal activities including illegal gambling, kidnapping, torture, cybercrimes, human trafficking, money laundering, illegal immigration, and perhaps even espionage, that is now the focus of intense controversy.

What I had in mind was how this kind of infrastructure can be repurposed to provide a foundation for academia transplanted into local government settings to jumpstart the conversion of a municipality into a “science city” as a purposive development escalator.

This idea is perfect for the Municipality of Ubay in Bohol, which continues to aspire to become a “science city” like Muñoz, Nuevo Ecija. It has the geographic area (335 square kilometers) and arguably the population (84,000) and if only it has the locally generated income to qualify to convert into a component city.

But perhaps the main argument is that, like Muñoz, it has a remarkable slew of government research centers that have co-located in Ubay. These are the DA-Central Visayas Integrated Agricultural Research Center (DA-CVIARC)-Bohol Experiment Station, Soil and Water Research and Demo Station, NIA Capayas Irrigation System, PH Carabao Center, Ubay Stock Farm, PCA Regional Nursery, USAID Fish Project, PhilRice Bohol Experimental Station, BFAR Sinadigan Multi-Species Hatchery, and Ubay National High School.

What Ubay lacks is an academia that can foster and retain the level of scientists, researchers, and innovators that will help bring a science culture, practice, and productivity that will catalyze economic activity in Ubay.

This is where the idea that just like UP Clark, a “multiversity” can be instantaneously created in Ubay to fill the gap in the academia required for a science city.

To address this gap, the municipal government plans to establish a community college to supplement the existing small private college. However, this incremental approach would take years, if not decades, to achieve the desired outcomes.

Unlike the traditional concept of a large university with many component schools, the proposed multiversity in Ubay would be a compact, shared facility housing multidisciplinary detachments from various universities. This approach leverages existing facilities to host programs from multiple prestigious universities, providing immediate access to quality higher education.

The establishment of a multiversity hub involves inviting high-prestige universities to offer their best programs. In Ubay, potential partners could include the University of the Philippines in the Visayas, the Eastern Visayas State University, the Bohol Island State University, and San Carlos University in Cebu.

The operational arrangements needed are memoranda of agreement that would outline the terms of collaboration, ensuring mutual commitment to success; existing facilities would be repurposed to expedite the hub’s establishment, minimizing the need for extensive construction; faculty members from partner universities would travel to teach at the hub twice a week, following a logical framework and rotational schedule to ensure diverse expertise.

Similar initiatives have succeeded in South Asia, Africa, and the United States. For instance, the Claremont Colleges in California exemplify multiple institutions sharing resources while maintaining individual identities.

So now I think about the Bamban complex. If that can be built so readily, why can’t a similar structure be established by the government to house a multiverse that can jumpstart the claim of a municipality like Ubay toward a journey to be a science city?

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