Dealing with the hype
With the School of Management's aggressive promotions, are other Loyola Schools left behind?Among the four Loyola Schools, the John Gokongwei School of Management (JGSOM) seems to make the most noise and hype nowadays&em;in terms of promotions, that is. From flyers to brochures to large-scale media, people see the school's promotional efforts almost regularly.
In fact, no less than the Sunday Inquirer Magazine has featured the school in its December 16, 2007 issue, with JGSOM luminaries on the cover and stories about it filling almost the entire magazine.
However, as JGSOM appears superior to the rest in terms of promoting itself, some people think that the three other schools may be left behind.
Only SOM?
Jason Hermosa (II AB Eco) says that the attention given to JGSOM is unfair and makes it more exposed than any other Loyola School. Efren Medina* also thinks that the Ateneo seemingly rests its pride on JGSOM alone, as seen in the flyers given to prospective students during enrolment.
Valid or not, another view is that because of JGSOM's aggressive promotions, it seems that everything good in the Ateneo is attributable to it alone.
"It looks like the basis of Ateneo quality rests on SOM," Hermosa says in Filipino.
"They seem to be well-published," he adds. "It's always written in the flyers: the prestigious school."
And well-published, it is.
The December 16 Sunday Inquirer Magazine issue, for instance, bore the banner "Top of the Class" and had five stories on JGSOM: John Gokongwei and his business tips, JGSOM being awarded Center of Excellence (CoE) citations in business administration and entrepreneurship by the Commission on Higher Education (CHED), the Junior Term Abroad program, the SOM Business Accelerator, and the JG Student Enterprise Center.
Vice President for the Loyola Schools Ma. Assunta Cuyegkeng, Ph.D., explains that JGSOM was featured for acquiring the first CHED CoE citations in business adminis-tration and entrepreneurship among other CHED-supervised schools.
"[It] was really for them to project their stature as the School of Management compared to other universities in the Philippines or even in the region," she says.
Economics Professor and Inquirer columnist Cielito Habito, Ph.D., describes the JGSOM feature as a public relations move. He says that institutions like universities promote themselves in various ways including inadvertent publicity&em;media outfits themselves choosing to feature a particular institution&em;or conscious communication in the form of paid advertisements.
"When institutions do try to consciously communicate widely what they're doing, often it does cost money … because that's the way the business works," he says.
"It's not something to be hidden or be embarrassed about. I would say that it is part of the process of public information and public advocacy."
JGSOM Dean Rodolfo Ang explains that, originally, JGSOM was set to place a paid advertisement in the Philippine Daily Inquirer announcing its two CHED CoE citations. Soon, however, it was the Sunday Inquirer Magazine which proposed that JGSOM be featured instead since "there are marketing values to it superior to a simple ad."
He adds that aside from this, the school has other activities aimed at promoting itself such as the open house for new students, conferences for faculty members, and seminars involving the business community.
"We organize a lot of activities and all of these are valuable activities in themselves, [and] are also marketing activities for us," he says.
And there is nothing wrong with all these, he says. Reacting to negative comments to the JGSOM feature in the Sunday Inquirer Magazine, Ang could not help but feel disappointed.
"Shouldn't we all be proud of each other's achievements, because we're all part of one community?"
Inequality, but not competition
Marketing and Law Department Chair Anna Mendiola believes that marketing courses is the current trend among many universities, and that this necessarily entails aggres-sive promotions.
"Sometimes they have to do something more than just sit down and wait for students to come ... because they now realize that they [have] such a good program [that] they must be able to tell other people about [it]," she says.
"We really have to tell the world what we're doing because that is how it is now," Cuyegkeng adds. "You have ... to market yourself."
And although promotions have to be a concerted effort, Mendiola believes that there is inevitable inequality when it comes to it. Individual schools' promotional efforts vary according to their respective deans' initiatives and personalities.
For instance, School of Science and Engineering (SOSE) Dean Fabian Dayrit, Ph.D., admits that marketing is one of the SOSE's weaknesses.
"Maybe we know our science, but we don't know marketing," he says. "It's something [we have] to learn."
Because each school has a different target market, however, pitting one against another is unnecessary, administrators believe. From recruitment up to enlistment, every effort is geared at attracting students with varied interests.
"If the students aren't interested in science," Dayrit says, "then why advertise [it] to them?"
Thus, he rejects the idea that there ever is competition among the Loyola Schools, especially in light of the perceived supremacy of JGSOM in terms of marketing and promotions.
Each school has its own efforts like preparing presentations and promotional campaigns to not just to promote itself, but to raise its visibility to those interested in it.
"[It's really] accentuating what is distinctive [in each school]," says School of Social Sciences (SOSS) Dean Fr. Jose Cruz, SJ.
Such is also the view of Ang, who doesn't believe that promotions among the Loyola Schools are unequal, with JGSOM having the edge. "Every school has to market in the means that is appropriate to [its] field," he says. "The marketing medium you use depends on the target you're trying to attract."
Collective identity
For Cruz, any talk about competition among the four Loyola Schools is invalid because Ateneans should be seen as products of all these schools combined.
After all, he adds, the restructuring of the former School of Arts and Sciences into the Loyola Schools in 2000 was an administrative strategy of classifying students according to their courses, and not about making each school exclusive.
"One way of looking at it is that [a] SOM student, by definition, is also a Humanities student and a SOSS student," he says. "In terms of labeling, you are a SOM student. But in terms of your formation you cannot say only SOM teaches [you]."
When it comes to academic formation, Cuyegkeng explains that each department has its own way of developing students, which of course is not exclusive. This means that even a student from SOSE, for instance, can benefit from courses in the Humanities.
Despite being divided into four schools that have different strengths and efforts, what keeps the Ateneo's collective identity, Cuyegkeng says, is that these schools share one vision and mission, and uphold common goals and standards.
"We see ourselves as a university together," she says.
Individuality
For Cruz, then, the schools do not have any reason to compete with each other, even in terms of promotions.
"I don't know [if] even among ourselves we [can] call it a competition as such," he says.
Because Ateneo tradition is rooted in respect for the individuality of each person, School of Humanities (SOH) Acting Dean Benilda Santos, Ph.D., says she does not see SOH competing with other Loyola Schools.
"I don't feel like we compete," she says. "We have our own way of feeling secure in our particular excellences."
As far as JGSOM's noise and hype are concerned, Cuyegkeng acknowledges these as the school's edge due to its thrust and background in marketing. More so, she says that JGSOM's pool of resources for promotions, such as writers, photographers, and money, are often independent from the Loyola Schools' common resources.
"I guess in a sense for JGSOM, they're the ones that people easily see because they have the resources to do special promotions," she says.
In the end, however, it's all about promoting just one Ateneo. "We're one family," Ang says.
"Why should it matter when it's the same hand that's being promoted?" Mendiola adds
"In the end, it's all about being proud of the Ateneo. It's all about communicating what the Ateneo is all about."
*Name has been changed to protect the individual.
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