All graduating students across the Visayas State University system will receive their diploma and their Transcript of Records (TOR) on their graduation day. This is the commitment of VSU President Prof. Dr. Prose Ivy G. Yepes to the graduating Class of 2024.

The graduation ceremonies of the component campuses in Alangalang, Isabel, Tolosa, and Villaba were completed last week with all the graduating students receiving a complete set of employment documents. 

This will also be the case for the flagship campus in Baybay City as 1,361 graduating students will march in three clusters from August 6 and 7, 2024 at the VSU Gymnatorium.

Months before the filing for final clearance for this year’s graduating students, President Yepes gave a marching order to the Office of the University Registrar (OUR) to bring back a long-held practice of the university of distributing both the diploma and the TOR on the actual graduation day.

“I told our Registrar that there should be no ifs and buts in releasing the credentials of our graduating students as we cannot ask them to spend more by returning to the university just to claim what they ought to receive from us,” Dr. Yepes said in an interview.

The new VSU Chief Steward also highlighted that an important part of her administration’s first few days is to improve some of the university’s existing systems, especially in dealing with the public.

“Releasing the important credentials of our graduates makes our graduation more meaningful because they get to receive the proof of their hard work on their final day in VSU. This also improves our public service to them as they will no longer endure long days of waiting that sometimes hinder them from getting employed,” she added.

Since the time of VSU’s founding father and first ViSCA President Dr. Fernando A. Bernardo in the 1980s, the university has been known to distribute employment credentials of graduates in time for the graduation.

This was only halted during the pandemic as backlogs in TOR distribution piled up because of an increasing number of graduates aggravated by mobility restrictions at that time.

In last year’s system-wide Commencement Exercises, the university was only able to release the diploma on the Main Campus with the TOR issued a month after the graduation day.

Darrel Hindoy, a graduating student from the Department of Mechanical Engineering (DME) reacted positively to this move by the Yepes administration as he believed that this is particularly helpful for students who will immediately take licensure examinations.

“This is a hugely welcome development for us graduates who are expected to take the board exam a few months after our graduation day. I’m grateful to the new VSU administration for making this happen for all of us #ProudViscans of Class 2024,” he said.

A graduation of many firsts

For the first time in the history of the university, this year’s graduation ceremony in the Main Campus was clustered into three groups with the Graduate School (GS), College of Agriculture and Food Science (CAFS), College of Forestry and Environmental Science (CFES), and College of Veterinary Medicine (CVM) constituting the first cluster with their graduation to be held on August 6, 2024, at 2:00 PM. 

The second cluster is composed of the College of Arts and Sciences (CAS), and the College of Management and Economics (CME) with their ceremony happening in the morning of August 7 at 8:00 AM. Completing Class 2024 is the third cluster comprising the College of Education (COED), the College of Engineering and Technology (CET), and the College of Nursing (CON).

This clustering of graduates was implemented to shorten the length of the graduation program and to allow everyone to be accommodated in the expanded VSU Gymnatorium. Each of the graduating students is allowed a maximum of three guests with one accompanying parent or guardian in the processional while the two other guests are comfortably seated in the bleachers.

Three huge multimedia LED wall displays were also installed in the graduation venue to allow everyone to have a better view of the stage.

Lastly, as part of the commitment of the university management committee to reduce waste, no printed copies of the graduation program were distributed to the graduating students.

In lieu of the printed document, the graduands received a customized hand fan with a QR code directing to an online soft copy of the graduation program. This was distributed to them over the weekend of August 4 together with the official VSU academic regalia.

The new university administration committed to implementing more sustainable and eco-friendly practices in its future programs and events as part of its desire to fulfill the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations (UN).

[This article is in line with Sustainable Development Goals: 4 (Quality Education), 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth), 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities), and 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production).]

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