Rosalie Arcala Hall, writing from Iloilo in the Philippines.

In travel, detours present unlikely possibilities. As an academic, I have taken very few of these in my quest to get published and move at the top of my specialization. I have always taken a purposeful approach towards my time and effort– whether attending a conference (network! find publication outlets! project collaborators!) or picking a topic to read or write about (must tie in with the military! build up, not out, onto existing corpus of personal publication!). I live my life like my subject of specialization: mission-oriented, parsimonious and driven. Stopping along the roadside to smell the flowers has never been my thing.

But in the past few weeks, I have embarked on activities which took me out of my well-trodden path as Political Scientist and military expert. I attended a university system-wide research workshop on the environment which brought together natural/physical and social scientists in one roof. This literal meet-and-greet was a first in my University, where faculty members are accustomed to talking only to their kind. Having a conversation with a marine biodiversity expert, an agricultural economist and a medical epidemiologist was an eye opening experience for me; it also brought to the forefront a long subsumed public policy analytical lens bequeathed to me by my professors from graduate school in Boston. Rather than being out of my element, I was buoyed by my ignorance of the scientific literature.

The second was another workshop that brought together faculty members from different universities in our region to introduce and socialize the idea of doing multidisciplinary research, this time under the auspices of the government Commission on Higher Education. Contrary to my previous roles as proponent, leader or resource person, I was engaged as a facilitator, to bring together a diverse group of ten overworked (they handle 8-10 classes per semester), teaching-focused academics to hammer out a proposal on “changing family structure” in two and 1/2 days. I had to suppress my natural instincts to dominate, impose and be goal-oriented (finish all the sections!) in this exercise. In the process, I learned to listen more attentively, to be inclusive, diplomatic and life affirming.

The third was a sociological conference, at which I presented a paper on the soft technology of counterinsurgency. While this is is not my first foray into another academic discipline (the other time was with a convention of statisticians!), the kind of questions I elicited from sociologists were insightful and refreshing. Moreover, the other papers read were so engaging, current, rooted and a tinged irreverent (case in point: ethnonationalist conflict between Muslims and Christians played in social network discourse), it made me reflect on how boring and pedantic by comparison the other conferences I have been to tend to be. It also made me want to read out into sociological theories.

This out-of-discipline experience considerably expanded and deepened my worldview and network. I am being invited to a play in a sandbox, for which concrete rewards (at least those that count) are not likely to come. I am not certain whether I would eventually decide to take up the invitation. Would I be involved in a research project with them? Publish in a sociology journal? These are daunting prospects for somebody like me, still trying to earn my wings. But I am glad to at least have taken the detour.

This post was also published in Inside Higher Ed

Rosalie Arcala Hall, writing from Iloilo, Philippines

A friend and fellow academic from Monash University, Sunway Campus in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia recently came for a 4-day scoping visit in Iloilo. My husband I are helping him establish connections, line up resources and connections and scout for logistics for a study tour for 18-20 students in January 2013. The “In Search of Iloilo” visit is the 8th such activity in Southeast Asia he has independently planned and carried out for his home institution. Previously, he has brought different groups of students to Saigon, Yogyakarta and Baguio. In this four-day visit, I came to know more about his film documentaries (on street vendors; on informal sector workers) and the social activist streak he has successfully incorporated into his academic and artistic work. It made me reflect on the kind of scholarly path I have taken thus far, and how by comparison it lacks the kind of social imprint that my circle of academic friends have managed to pursue in their lives.

Having been elsewhere (abroad) for almost half of my 20-year academic career at UP Visayas gives me an added feeling that I lack local rooted-ness. I saw my career projected outward– competing for international research grants and presenting local realities to foreign audiences. Being in and out every two years also made me realize how little I know of the many good local community works my colleagues are doing– running a food subsidy program for poor students; embarking on an aggressive student recruitment drive among public high school students; providing technical assistance in coastal resource mapping for municipal governments. My colleagues have moved in the direction of providing substance to our university’s mandate of giving back to the public that provides us tax money.

Gender concerns, which was my original advocacy passion, has evolved in my region (Western Visayas) in collaborative directions through the UGSAD, the regional gender resource center. I was recently recruited as an affiliate to attend a consultation hosted by the Commission on Human Rights on Philippine compliance to various rights treaties. The attendees, drawn from a broad sector of civil society, had such rich discussion of their work with young persons in conflict with the law, people with HIV, sex workers, informal settlers… I felt so lame having just done field work with women in the army and police. In the company of these veteran civil society actors, I was a novice whose theoretical frames and foreign comparisons have little bearing on everyday realities. Non-governmental organizations in my region have branched into action research, which are giving academics like myself a run for our money.

The sum total of my socially-conscious engagements typify that of a materially-comfortable, educated and childless middle class woman; they include participating in a book drive, providing support to a parish feeding program for children, and extending assistance and advice to those looking for scholarships and grants. Career-wise, my template follows Western standards: publish in peer-reviewed journals, attend professional conferences, apply for competitive grants and fellowships, write policy-relevant pieces. However, it has taken me almost a decade to realize I have done so little in terms of giving back.

I resolve from hereon to know more about my city and region, and to look for meaningful engagements for which I am able to marry my scholarship and social commitments. Where one is surrounded by harsh realities of poverty and marginalization, it is unconscionable to see the academic profession as an ivory tower of learning. I will get out, get connected and go local.

This post was also published in Inside Higher Ed.

Rosalie Arcala Hall, writing from Iloilo in the Philippines.

On my way back from Bandung, Indonesia, I received two messages which set me hollering in joy in the crowded departure lounge of the Manila airport. A young colleague was awarded a Fulbright grant for a PhD in the US; two others were short-listed for Fulbright research grants in agriculture. What really touched me were the effusive thanks on their part for my encouraging them to apply and for believing in their competitiveness as applicants. Prior to that, a former thesis advisee had sent me an email thanking me for landing a job at a University in Mindanao. He had met the department chair at the Political Science conference where he presented a paper and for which he received travel assistance from me and my husband.

These messages made me reflect about how much (or how little, in my reckoning) I have done for others throughout my academic career. The university is full of newbies eager to receive guidance and guideposts from those who have been-there-done-that on a myriad of decisions: choosing the right graduate program to get into, working on a thesis or dissertation, preparing research proposals or publishing peer-reviewed articles. Unfortunately, not all called to academic life are organically cut out for mentoring. In an environment where one has to jostle for lucrative grants and consultancies, to mentor means to create a potential competitor. In some Manila-based universities where professors are so busy juggling multiple “moonlighting” activities, there simply is no time to nurture budding scholars along the lines demanded by mentorship.

I have had no mentor in the full sense of the word, but my whole academic career is a story of the boundless generosity of individuals who believed in my potential. There were Dr. Nemenzo and Dr. Caoili, Political Science professors who overlooked my ripped jeans and t-shirts with leftist messages to get me into teaching, with only a promise that I would hold my law degree ambitions in abeyance. Colleagues Lisa Baliao, Rose Asong and Luz Rodriguez initiated me to the joys of field-based research across rivers, on mountain tops, in crowded jeepneys or habal-habal (single motorbike carrying at least 9 passengers). Dr. Siason, my former Division chair pushed me to apply for a Fulbright fellowship when but a handful have ever been awarded at my University. I became a better writer and record-time PhD-holder through Bill Crotty, Suzanne Ogden and Chris Bosso. From Temy Rivera, Carol Hernandez and Jojo Abinales, Filipino scholars whose international successes inspire career templates, I have received good introductions which enabled me to do interviews, deliver lectures and make hosting arrangements in Japan and the US.

I did not set out to mentor; it just happened and was relatively easy to do. I have written so many personalized recommendation letters to colleagues and students applying for school admission or jobs. I recruited colleagues to apply for Fulbright and other competitive international grants I have previously received. I coached young faculty members to be bolder in connecting with foreign professors, to submit to ISI journal outlets, and to dream big and believe in the superiority of their achievements even if coming from the Philippine periphery. Upon assuming the Division chairmanship, I have carried out workshops and writing workshops for journal article and research proposal preparation. I have sat down with colleagues to figure out graduate school options in the Philippines and abroad. I have also wrestled with University administrators for faculty tenure and renewal of appointments and explored funding options for those attending professional conferences. I celebrate colleagues publishing an article, releasing a book, winning an award by writing about them in the University website and newsletter.

Paying small acts of kindness forward bears surprising psychic rewards.

This post was also published at Inside Higher Ed.

Rosalie Arcala Hall, writing from Iloilo, Philippines

In the hustle and grind of academic life, there are those who are contented with their tenure position and just “teach and go.” Others labor under pressure to research and publish, churning in proposals, reports and manuscripts for the elusive promotion and recognition in their discipline. A few rise above these professional or livelihood imperatives to nurture and strengthen the University’s sense of community. They are problem solvers, social capital builders and serve as an overall repository of institutional memories. Their achievements often defy standard metrics for academic performance, but bring attention to core values of what the University as a social entity exists for.

We are a university strongly rooted in the local scene. Our students come mostly from the Western Visayas region or Ilonggo-speaking enclaves in Mindanao and from predominantly poor to middle class families. A large proportion of our students receive full or partial benefits under the University’s socialized tuition and financial assistance scheme. A good number are from fishing, farming or informal sector working families who could not afford to pay for their child’s board and dorm fees on a semester basis. Our graduates supply the region’s elite workforce: bank managers, lawyers, doctors, social and business entrepreneurs, government heads and local chief executives (as well as a handful of Communist rebels). Our 68-year presence is entwined with Iloilo City’s cultural legacy- from our American colonial-era buildings, to our collection of important works by local artists, to the wealth of our local history archives and academic studies on minorities (Sulod-non, Atis) and the marginalized.

There are three people (all academics), Lisa Baliao, Gilma Tayo and the late Henry Funtecha who exemplify the importance of grounding academic work where it matters most: to our community of students, staff, alumni and the city/town folks. Lisa, a dyed-in-the-wool UP maroon from high school onwards, leads the Alumni Office which for the past 3 years has raised more money, ran more alumni events (breakfasts, lunches, dinners, film screenings, cocktails, you name it) and has singlehandedly padded the donor list for university scholarships and grants. Her latest coup was raising in a year’s time most of the US$40,000 needed for a school bus. She has an enviable memorized Rolodex of her students from the past 30 years and their whereabouts; she is a great teacher, mentor and friend to many of these students who today when personally called upon, would instantly shell out or wire a $100 donation to Lisa. She’s indefatigable and a pillar of the University’s external engagements.

Gilma organized the UP Leaders in Food Trust in 2006, which provides “discreet” meal subsidies ($25-$50 a month) and food-for-work arrangements with the cafeteria to very poor University students. Because of delays in the University-provided allowance or their salaries as work assistants, we have quite a number of students who literally can’t afford to eat 3 square meals a day or merely subsist on a diet of US$0.10 noodles or can of sardines. Gilma independently fund raised by tapping UPV alumni in the US; UPLIFT eventually assisted about 2 dozen students, half of them already graduated and one dropout. They have a longer list of potential beneficiaries (which they document through rigorous interviews with classmates) but couldn’t accommodate all given donation shortfalls. She plans on building a soup kitchen to cut down cost and crafting a student-sponsorship scheme among better placed (income-wise) faculty members.

The late Sir Henry was a genuine scholar and a public intellectual. He pioneered groundbreaking research on the city’s local history; he ran a column in a local daily; he was a mainstay in many local radio programs dealing with everything from cuisine or arts and crafts to festivals; in addition, he authored readable and popular college History textbooks. At the helm of the University’s Center for West Visayan Studies, he brought local artisans to demonstrate and sell their crafts under the Living Museum and organized heritage-centered conferences that brought together government officials, business operators and academics in one table. Under his mentor-ship, students and colleagues grew to know, love and be proud of Iloilo.

These three peoples’ careers are not summed up by their respective degrees or academic rank. Their passion and dedicated investment to community-strengthening is humbling, particularly since they received little or no monetary reward for this type of service. Theirs is a skill set which is not recognized under a system obsessed with only rewarding those who publish in peer-reviewed and ISI outlets, yet they supply the very lifeblood of the University by making available extra resources in this era of declining budgets, enabling students to finish their degrees and cementing the University’s place in the larger society. They provide an alternative template of what it means to be an academic.

Rosalie Arcala Hall, writing from Iloilo, Philippines

Graduation and opening exercises bookend my university’s academic calendar and they are events which I make sure not to miss. The former I attend religiously because it gives me a once-in a-year chance to wear my PhD garb and to cheer my senior thesis advisees as they march one by one in their various fashionable expositions of the barong (pineapple fiber cloth) and sablay (the maroon-green-gold sash with the pre-Hispanic alphabet rendering of our University initials). The latter is the ceremonial welcome to new and returning students, heavy of symbolism and nostalgia-inducing. Both give me a renewed sense of purpose for my chosen profession, and a boost of varsity pride.

June is that time of the year when 16-year old expectant freshmen with their parents in tow brave the heat and the perspiration-inducing uphill climbs of our Miagao campus. They comprise 20% of the 6,000+ high school seniors who took the admission exam the previous August. Mostly honor graduates from public high schools in the Visayas and Mindanao regions, they leave their small-town accolades for the rigor and grit of academic programs where a grade of 3.0 (the equivalent of a “C”) is heaven-sent. Almost 90% of them will receive tuition and financial assistance; on their shoulders they carry the dreams of their poor to lower-middle class parents. They will fight homesickness at first, then years of rural bucolic living in the Miagao town where cable TV is non-existent (in dormitories).

I love opening exercises as genuine displays of unabashed gaiety with a mix of myth-making. In a jam-packed auditorium, the University hymn “UP naming mahal” (University of the Philippines our beloved) is sung; the echoes of unstinting service to the nation are repeated in speech after speech; the student activists chant “Iskolar ng bayan, ngayon ay lumalaban” (the nation‘s scholars are fighting now) with the exit of the University colors and stage a demonstration after the program. Academic groups (upperclassmen from various colleges) in their distinct trademark colors (red for Redbolts; green for Clovers; blue for Bluechips) and wacky paraphernalia try to outdo each other with their clever, sometimes raunchy cheers. Clapping and boo-hoos accompany introductions of faculty members and administrators. If one considers that this ceremonial opening is done at least 3 times (university, college, Division) in 2 days, you get the idea of how energized everyone is.

April is that time of the year when beaming 20 to 21-year olds proudly walk with their parents to receive their diplomas. Their faces are unrecognizable in the glare of evening lights and their salon do’s. The valedictory speech of the student with the highest GWA * tells of service to the nation; the “UP naming mahal” is sung ardently and the same student activists do their usual chant and demonstration– constants for 103 years. Preceding this main event, the University holds a formal recognition program; a free cultural performance and a baccalaureate mass. It is both celebratory and somber; and one in which I get to say seemingly never-ending goodbyes to my graduating academic brood.

Rituals and traditions in the academy are underrated in a world that has become too fast-paced and harried. Pragmatists may think such displays of pomp and circumstance are a waste of tax payer’s money (we are after all a publicly-funded University). But I am old-school and remain strongly convinced of the value of shared memories in community building. I would like to think that I bond with my students in the daily grind of classroom instruction as much as being part of the crowd during graduation and opening exercises. After all, we have the same “maroon” (UP colors) blood cursing through our veins.

*General Weighted Average

Rosalie Arcala Hall, from Iloiolo in the Philippines

“I am going on a writing break” reads the opening statement of my letter to the University Chancellor explaining why I am going to the US Pacific Northwest for four weeks in May. If one considers that temperature rises to over 100 degrees Fahrenheit with 90% humidity during the Philippine summer, surely escape to a temperate country if one can afford it is a reasonable option. Being married to an American, my annual sojourns to the US are regular events my reneging-fellow paranoid University officials are used to. I “disappear” during April-May and resurface in time for the beginning of classes. But having been designated as Division chair last year, my claim to a summer vacation is now subject to approval and rigorous inspection. In deciding to become an administrator, it appears I have also inadvertently signed up to relinquish any scholarly pursuit.

Being in the government’s employment, I need to get permission from my University boss to leave the country. A “travel authority” is one document I never treat lightly, having been barred once by Philippine custom officials for not having it en route to attend a meeting in Bangkok. Alas, I can’t just teleport myself into and out of my office. Worse, for newbie administrators like myself, I have to make a strong case for temporarily abandoning my post as it was assumed one is literally chained to her administrative job. Before I even wrote that letter, I had to consult with our human resources chief about the possibility of leaving, with her proclaiming that I have only earned 4.5 days (!) of paid vacation credits thus far and 15 days of teacher’s leave. I had to find an officer-in-charge, leave detailed instructions to the staff and promise to remain connected (via the internet) to take care of recruitment and student enrollment concerns wherever I am. It is NOT a vacation, I am constantly reminded but a necessary “spatial distancing” so that I can do scholarly stuff, which frankly I need no longer be concerned with since I am now an administrator (so the logic goes).

“I take my writing seriously” I added in my letter. I had to make the point because I feel that it is an under-appreciated activity in my University and even more so for administrators. It is neither financially rewarding nor is seen as a measure of success, not surprising for a faculty body that is so productive research-wise, but whose publication record is a mere blip compared to our counterparts in UP Diliman. For instance, my Division is one of the most prolific units in terms of research project involvement, but only four (out of 36) have ever published in an ISI journal and only a handful in established domestic journals other than the one published by our University. Writing for many is done under duress– to complete a report, to comply with the requirement for tenure– but rarely as an act of creativity. I am no snob– I celebrate and publicize my faculty members who take time to connect with their public through their writing, like my Economics colleague who’s set a record for conference paper presentations on his work on valuation, or my Political Science colleague’s short but erudite commentaries on everyday-cultural politics in his Facebook account, or another colleague who recently published a book of poems.

“I can’t write in the Philippines,” I hastened to add. Writing does not come naturally to me. To write a journal article for submission, I need 4-8 uninterrupted hours in a quiet environment to write a 3-5 page draft. I can’t write in a hot, humid setting nor surrounded by blaring stereo music from neighbors and a wailing baby. I can’t squeeze in writing as it were on regular days where I also have to teach, administer faculty members, and manage my home. I can only do it on weekends or on long breaks. I have a set writing rhythm interspersed by caloric replenishment every 2-3 hours. My husband knows when to physically disappear; quit sending me messages on iChat; never to comment on or touch the pile of papers and books strewn on our bed when I am in my writing zone.

I am writing this piece on our cottage rental at Port Townsend overlooking the Straits of Juan de Fuca and the distant Vancouver Island. I got my approved paid leave and travel authority. No small victory to an academic administrator who’s also trying very hard to retain her academic core.

Rosalie Arcala Hall is a Professor at the University of the Philippines Visayas and a founding member of the editorial collective at University of Venus.