Dr. Carlito C. Cabas, Jr., director of the Quality Assurance and Accreditation Office (QAA), and Dr. Analiza B. Calles, dean of the School of Graduate Studies (SGS), has successfully completed their participation at the University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB) Higher Education Leadership Mentoring Fellowship Program (HELMFP).

Over the past nine weeks, 50 Fellows from 25 partner HEIs of UPLB took part in intensive academic and administrative activities from March 10 to May 23.

The UPLB HELMFP is a strategic initiative spearheaded by the UPLB Office for Institutional Development in Higher Education (OIDHE) aimed at enhancing leadership capacities among administrators and officials from partner higher education institutions (HEIs) across the Philippines.

The program offers immersive experiences designed to expose fellows to UPLB's best practices in academic leadership, research, internationalization, and institutional development, through four specialized tracks including academic, administrative, research management and implementation, and public service and extension.

Dr. Cabas and Dr. Calles both selected the Academic Track, one of the four specialized fellowship tracks offered under the program. Their host office was the UPLB Office of the Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs (OVCAA), where they were exposed to UPLB’s academic governance systems, curriculum development processes, outcomes-based education practices, faculty development strategies, and mechanisms for academic quality assurance.

Throughout the fellowship, participants engaged in a combination of on-site institutional immersions, virtual learning sessions, and mentorship engagements. These activities were carefully designed to encourage leadership reflection, policy innovation, and cross-institutional learning. 

In an interview, Dr. Cabas described the UPLB HELM Fellowship Batch 2 “as a beautiful encounter with various SUC leaders in the country.”

“It was a great leadership immersion and mentoring experience to learn from UP Systems’ best practices, initiatives, and approaches,” the QAA director said. “My primary outputs from the engagements will highly focus on program assessments, student support, and curriculum revisions, which I am bound to share at BiPSU.”

BiPSU President Dr. Victor C. Cañezo, Jr. also commended the fellows for representing the university and reiterated his full support for professional development initiatives that empower BiPSU leaders to become catalysts of change. “At BiPSU, we want our faculty members and leaders to be empowered and to grow,” the university president said.

Meanwhile, Executive Assistant to the President Joedel Peñaranda and University and Board Secretary Dr. Ralph Arvic Arcenal also joined the said program as fellows last year.

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