Serquiña assumes UPD DSCTA chairpersonship starting 1 August
Associate Professor Oscar T. Serquiña, Jr. is set to begin his role as full-time chair of UP Diliman’s Department of Speech Communication and Theatre Arts (DSCTA) on 1 August 2024. His three-year term ends on 31 July 2027. Serquiña had previously served in a holdover capacity before assuming the post.
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Serquiña will initiate projects and activities that seek to turn the DSCTA into a forward looking, public facing, institutionally integrated, and socially engaged academic department.
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Forward looking. Producing and adhering to pioneering, cutting-edge, and up to date scholarly, pedagogical, and creative practices in the fields of communication, theatre arts, and performance studies
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Public facing. Linked with various communities—academic, socio-civic, political, and industry-driven—that can enrich and be enriched by the research and scholarship, creative and artistic outputs, and pedagogical and administrative expertise of DSCTA faculty and students
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Institutionally integrated. Aptly recognized by and actively contributing to the related and relevant intellectual traditions and paradigms in and beyond the UP System
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Socially engaged. Committed to responding to social concerns and assisting various sectors in coming up with perspectives, projects, and programs that can improve their systems and operations and empower them to realize meaningful, impactful, and enduring change in their respective contexts
In the next three years, Serquiña will advance the following action points:
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Curricular improvement and advancement of the undergraduate and graduate programs in Speech Communication, Theatre Arts, and Performance Studies;
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Infrastructural integrity of academic and performance spaces;
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Human resource development of faculty, students, and staff;
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Scholarly and research ethos among DSCTA students and faculty;
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Stronger student relations and alumni networks;
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Heightened public character and commitment of DSCTA as an academic institution; and
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Institutional stability and sustainability through resource generation and people training.
Serquiña has been teaching with the DSCTA since 2010. He teaches classes in rhetoric, theatre, and performance studies. He has received research fellowships from the Asia Research Institute of the National University of Singapore (2013), Sciences Po-Paris (2014), the National Library of Australia (2018), and the Center for Southeast Asian Studies of the University of Michigan (2019). He was also a writing fellow at the University of Santo Tomas National Writers Workshop (2009), the Silliman University National Writers Workshop (2010), the KRITIKA National Workshop on Art and Cultural Criticism (2012), and the Kritika Kultura Criticism Workshop (2015). He holds an undergraduate degree in Speech Communication (2010), a master’s degree in Comparative Literature (2016), and a doctoral degree in Theatre Studies (2022). His scholarly essays have appeared in Performance Research, Theatre Research International, Humanities Diliman, Kritika Kultura, Philippine Studies, the Philippine Political Science Journal, and the Philippine Humanities Review.