With reports from Althea Gonzales and Gabriel Hipolito
With the more than 16,000 undergraduate students and a limited supply of faculty members, academic departments at De La Salle University (DLSU), especially those with interdisciplinary backgrounds, are forced to utilize human resources by outsourcing some of their courses to other departments.
According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the word ‘interdisciplinary’ means “involving two or more academic, scientific, or artistic disciplines.” In the University, many professors are interdisciplinary, meaning they have a background in two or more subject matters. The University makes sure that its faculty are fully utilized.
Communication between departments
Rhoderick Nuncio, vice-dean for the College of Liberal Arts, shares, “Every term, I think that’s between the seventh or eighth week of each term, there is a meeting called upon by the Office of the Vice Dean regarding the plantilla of courses… The Vice Chairs would attend that meeting… We discuss the available courses that will be open next term and then the availability of faculty members who would handle the courses under these interdisciplinary subjects or courses.” He further explains that they may overload professors or hire new ones if there occurs a gap between the load and the number of available teachers.
Pia Manalastas, the chair of the Management and Organization Department, says that departments may also communicate via email two to three months before courses are offered. She also describes the Council of Chairs (COC), a gathering of department chairs and the dean of a college.
She narrates, “Once every other week, we come together…That’s also an opportunity for us to discuss among ourselves within the college pertinent issues.” She adds, “That can be a forum in a sense within a college of an interdisciplinary exchange of faculty…We tap the expertise of different departments within the college.”
Nuncio also explains that there are various modes of interdisciplinarity and multi-disciplinarity. Some subjects would involve one teacher with integrated knowledge, while others would require a team of teachers. The latter is known as “team teaching.” Some examples of team-taught subjects in the past are Great Works (GREATWK) and Sports Management.
There are also subjects that involve one master lecturer and three tutors in a large class that is three times the size of a normal class. This is the case for Society and Technology (SOCTECH) and Social Science Thematic Elective (THMATIC) courses. There are also subjects that only require one teacher, but may sometimes not come from the department from where it is offered. Examples include Business Analysis 1 (BUSANA1), which is offered by the Decision Sciences and Innovation Department, but can be taught by teachers from the Math department. Other interdisciplinary courses include Gender Studies (GENDERS).
Why departments share professors
Nuncio explains that a lack of teachers in a particular department and the need for expertise from another department are the main reasons why departments would have to borrow teachers from other departments.
“[It’s a] human resource question.” he says, “There is not enough faculty members in their department.” He also states, “They are requested to teach because they have the specialization to speak for.”
Gerardo Mariano, the chair of the Communication department, says, “They [Professors borrowed from departments] can fill gaps in the other departments. For instance, some of our faculty have degrees in Development Communication. They can very well handle that subject, which we don’t offer by the way, for the AB Development Studies. On the other hand, we have an elective on screenwriting. There are professors in the Literature department who write screenplays. The playwright Bienvenido Noriega Jr. has taught drama, as well as economics, public administration and business administration.”
One aspect that may contribute to the problem of scarcity is the policy of alignment. Manalastas explains, “Right now, because of alignment, the University requires your terminal degree, either Masters or Doctorate, should be aligned with the department. So it can be that that alignment may cause us not to be able to hire faculty.”
Honorata Dimapilis, the chair of the Decision Sciences and Innovation department, shares that because of alignment, many teachers have been converted to part-time, and as such, cannot take the full 12 unit load of a full-time professor. To address this, her department has paired up part-time professors with full-time professors for courses offered, resulting in more workload for full-time professors since the max units are now divided between the two faculty members. The department is hiring more professors to amend the problem. She further shares that sharing of teachers normally happens due to shortages in teachers and based on course expertise, and the requests start within the college first, before they decide to ask other departments outside of the college.
The issue of expertise
Merging various specializations into one subject can make the expertise of teachers over a subject questionable, but Nuncio stresses that the University is strict about assigning professors to a course only if they are experts on the subject.
He explains, “It is a CHED (Commission on Higher Education)-sanction requirement, at the same time it is also sanctioned, mandated to us by the Vice Chancellor of Academics. We will not give a load to somebody who is not fit to teach the subject since it is not their specialization.”
This may pose some issues, since professors may encounter expertise concerns when teaching courses in other departments. For instance, would a Philosophy professor teaching in a course for a psychology class need background on psychology? Nuncio responds to this example by saying, “No, they don’t need, because they’re not teaching psychology subjects, they’re teaching their specialization: that’s philosophy. They’re just teaching in a class of psychology students, but the subject is philosophical.”
He further reveals that professors are guided when teaching interdisciplinary subjects. “Before the term starts, we have a workshop. During the workshop we discuss the do’s and don’ts, the content, the pedagogy, the strategy on how to teach the subject, what are the things that you should bear in mind when you teach the subject, what are the topics that are within your expertise,” he relates.
Mariano says, “Most professors, regardless of their mother discipline, are venturing beyond their borders. Take the case of ethics, a branch of philosophy. There are courses on engineering ethics, legal ethics, media ethics, business ethics, bio ethics.”
Profs teaching major courses
One reason why departments request professors from other departments is that their course offerings for degree programs are highly-specialized and are offered seasonally. It is deemed more efficient for the said departments to outsource these courses to other professors.
According to the International Studies (IS) department chair Dennis Trinidad, the Shared Faculty Program was devised to address issues of lack of professors in highly-specialized courses. He explains, “Some of the academic programs are interdisciplinary in nature. Basically, the programs are interdisciplinary meaning there are courses that should be taught or handled by another faculty specializing in a certain discipline. For example, in the Japanese studies program, we have Japanese philosophy and religion. So the Philosophy departments (teach the course)… The idea is for experts, for specialists to be the one to handle these courses.”
Trinidad shed some light into the inner workings of the exchange program. He explains that the requesting department sends a letter of request to the providing department. Once approved, the department chair gives the load to the most suitable professor he or she discerns. “The plantilla is with the home department but the courses is reflected as part of the IS course offerings.”
Not only for majors
While this is most apparent in major courses, general education courses can also be taught by professors who do not belong to the department offering the said courses.
One of these is the GREATWK course offered by the Literature department. It is a course tackling three great works from world history by one professor each. This results in students meeting three different professors for one class.
While multiple professors teaching a single class isn’t uncommon to interdisciplinary subjects, what makes GREATWK unique is the fact that all three professors come from different departments, and each teach a separate part of the term. Also, each student is exposed to three separate pieces of literature from different themes (e.g. psychology, history, sociology).
When students complain
The problem begins when the department cannot ensure that the professor received is the most qualified to teach the major course. This can cause some interference with the student’s learning.
Students of an American Studies (AB-ISA) course have shared their difficulty in the said course which includes lackluster teaching and constant free cuts.
Ynez*, another AB-ISA student, laments the situation she faces. She said, “Hindi nila masyadong gamay minsan yung subject tapos nakakairita. Students [ang] napapahamak sa mga ginagawa nila!” [“Professors do not have a grasp in the subject they’re teaching and it’s irritating to know that students suffer the consequence.”]
Jon*, an AB-ISA student of the said course, shares the need for departments to check if they are “suitable for the course.” He explains, “For me, the professor should have enough experience or study in the said specific subject because the students would be the one really affected if the professor is not well-oriented about the subject.”
Addressing this specific issue, Trinidad said that, technically, the professor is still under his home department so issues should be addressed to them. Nevertheless, he said that his department is willing to help by sitting down with representatives from the other department when asked to do so.
With that, Trinidad said that there are no clear rules on requesting faculty from other departments. “The process is very informal,” he laments. He believes that the process should have rules set as policy to reduce instances wherein the professor assigned is incapable of doing so even when they have the specialization needed to teach the course.
When students acclaim
Not all professors are incapable of teaching courses assigned to them in a different department. As a matter of fact, they have become a valuable asset in the departments receiving them.
One example would be Vicente Groyon III from the Literature Department. He also teaches in the Communication department and mentors for thesis projects. One of his courses for the said department is Narrative Principles (NARATIV), designed for understanding principles of storytelling.
According to Shaunna Padlan (III, AB-CAM), she does not regret taking the said class. She explains further, “While I was taking his NARATIV class, it was a love and hate relationship for me. Hate because of the workload. It’s really heavy. But one cannot help but like him because of his interesting discussions in class.”
Abby Jose (III, AB-CAM) agrees with Padlan. She adds further, “Sir Groyon was one of the best profs that I had in DLSU. Everything he taught me is still fresh in my head.” She considers what she learned in Groyon’s class as helpful in the future, “He taught us facts that are most useful when it comes to my thesis and character building activities.”
The path of education
Nuncio states that interdisciplinary courses are now the trend in education. “Well, the positive thing [about sharing professors between departments] is we make interdisciplinary courses, interdisciplinary knowledge possible and feasible in the university, because that’s the trend now. It’s not just the trend in the University. It’s the trend worldwide. And we’ve been doing this for almost a decade, so we are not left behind, we are on track… in fact, GE (General Education) now, the K+12, the design is very interdisciplinary.”
Some examples he mentioned of upcoming GE subjects include Understanding the Self and Purposive Communication, which are not secluded to one expertise or department, but can each be taught by several departments. “Gone are the days when we are very specialized,” he says.
*Name changed for anonymity
