Boac, Marinduque, Philippines — In preparation for its eventual conversion into a full-fledged University, a three-day planning workshop on Revisiting MSC’s Strategic Development Plan was conducted at the MSC Main Audio-Visual Room, Tanza, Boac, Marinduque on March 11-13, 2024.
With the usual gesture of welcoming guests in the island, a warm welcome was rendered through the traditional ‘putong’ from the MSC Culture and Arts Unit headed by Ms. Ruby Ann T. Lantita.
Hosted and organized by the MSC Institutional Planning and Development Office (IPDO) headed by Ms. Mila Grace Gutierrez, with the full support and guidance of SUC President III, Prof. Dr. Diosdado P. Zulueta and Ms. Jhoanna Sager, former IPDO Director, the activity was indeed successfully conducted. Given by Ms. Gutierrez, the activity aimed to evaluate the current plan and assess its effectiveness in achieving organizational objectives; identify any gaps between the current plan and the evolving needs of the organization and opportunities that may have arisen; foster active participation and engagement from key stakeholders to gather diverse perspectives; promote strategic initiatives based on their potential impact and feasibility within the MSC’s resources; and make necessary revisions and updates to the strategic development plan to ensure its relevance and effectiveness in guiding MSC’s growth and success.
Consequently, Hon. Sen. Pia S. Cayetano, delivered her opening message via Zoom, on the preparation of the institution for the future. She emphasized, “All State College and Universities must provide direction to adapt careers for the future, empowering Filipinos in honing their skills in communication, collaboration and ensuring a sustainable future”. She also pointed out her continuous support for funding the Futures Thinking and pushing the importance of FT as a norm in government work that it passes the test of sustainability.
This was followed by the provocation from Mr. Noel De Guia from the Senate Committee on SDGs, Innovation and Futures Thinking who pointed out the importance of capturing the significance of knowing the intent of the institution, its direction, and the resources to be used that are of value to MSC and the community.
On the other hand, MSC President, Prof. Dr. Diosdado P. Zulueta represented by Asso. Prof. Raoul J. Magcamit-VP for Academic Affairs also shared a message with aspirations encouraging everyone to, “…envision what MSC will become”. He also emphasized the importance of facing the future altogether as we strive to be a beacon of excellence and social responsibility while staying rooted in our local community.
Additionally, Dr. Ma. Edelwina M. Blasé-VP for Research and Extension also shared a message of welcome to the participants and the guests hoping that the activity would be productive one being one with the vision of PDPZ for MSC to be a university soon.
To have congruent outputs every session, the attendees were divided into five (5) groups such as instruction, R&E, production, administration and finance, and student affairs services. The instruction group was composed of academic deans while the R&E group was composed of R&E officials, administration and finance was composed of administrative officials and personnel, production was headed by the Business Affairs of the college, and the SAS group was composed of officials from the student affairs services department.
The resource speaker for the workshop was the highly esteemed former CHED Commissioner & first President of Cavite State University, Dr. Ruperto S. Sangalang. He began the day with an introduction of “Planning: Realities in Higher Education”, giving a glimpse of the Characteristics of World Class Universities, Input –Process-Output-Outcomes Framework, and the Review of MSC’s Current Strategic Plan through internal scanning, resource, programs, performance, and outputs; and benchmark/standards analyses. Subsequently, group reports on key areas based on internal scanning performance gaps were done followed by the discussion of retrospective analysis and root cause analysis. In the afternoon session, Horizon Scanning: Signals, Drivers and Trends focusing on PESTLE analysis were discussed along with Futures Triangle Workshop.
On the 2nd day, Dr. Sangalang discussed the Scenario Development, Moonshot Thinking, SWOT analysis, BSC Analysis and BSC SWOT with the presentation of group outputs every end of the session.
On the 3rd day, the topic was Backcasting and the presentation of revised outputs was done by the groups. Dr. Sangalang applauded the outputs of all the groups who participated to this 3-day activity and hoped that these would be useful in revising all the needed improvements of the MSC’s SDP.
With all the outputs from the group, the workshop ended with hopes of revising the MSC Strategic Development Plan anchored to the drivers and trends of Futures Thinking according to the evolving needs of the communities and stakeholders while sustaining its relevance and continuous growth in the national and international academic setting.
(MSCIU/OMIA/M Malapitan/LJ Nite/E Mabute)
