Silliman U to construct new SHS building 1st quarter this year

MINERVA BC NEWMAN

DUMAGUETE CITY -- Silliman University (SU) starts construction of a new academic building for Senior High School (SHS) to be located beside the Dr. Romeo P. Ariniego Art Gallery as SU president Dr. Betty McCann with some university officials led the groundbreaking ceremony on January 14 at the site of the construction which will start anytime in the first quarter of this year.  The building will have 24 classrooms that can accommodate 40 students per room.

McCann said the purpose the purpose of the building is to give SHS students and faculty a sense of place and a sense of home.  Silliman SHS accepted its first batch of Grade 11 students in June 2016, since then no new classrooms have been constructed for SHS as the University utilized available classrooms in various colleges and departments.

The building was designed by the SU Architecture Department faculty and is expected to be completed by August 2022 in time for School Year 2022-2023.  SU Vice President for Development Jane Annette Belarmino said the University hopes to conduct face-to-face classes by this time.

Belarmino said that because there was no building for SHS its faculty and students are “scattered” all over the campus as the University utilized extra classrooms in different academic buildings to hold SHS classes.

“As more and more SHS students enrolled and the transition to K-12 progressed and we already have first year, second year, and third year college students, our (SHS) students were slowly crowded out of the academic buildings on campus,” Belarmino added.

Before the implementation of online distance learning for all SU programs in SY 2020-2021, SHS had almost 2,000 students every year.  Belarmino said the University expects this number to grow when face-to-face classes are back as SU continues to strengthen its SHS programs.

Meanwhile, Dr. Gina Bonior, associate dean of the College of Education said that the lack of a designated building for SHS also made it difficult for teachers to go to their classes as they had to travel between buildings that were far from each other.

“The SHS building is not just...a structure, it is a social space where our students will converge; where ideas could be co-constructed; where, several years from now, our graduates from the SHS would come for their reunion. This is going to be home. For faculty, this is about health; this is about their well-being,” Bonior said. (Photos: SU-OIP)