NORSU, UP Diliman create partnership

NORSU, UP Diliman create partnership

Students looking for the type of education offered by the best in the world such as the University of the Philippines-Diliman need not go anywhere anymore. This is because the Negros Oriental State University now offers a course in partnership with the National Institute of Geological Sciences of the University of the Philippines Diliman.

The UP NIGS is known to be the premiere institution on geophysical sciences that hosts among the most advanced geophysical laboratories and most brilliant geoscientists in the country. The UP NIGS was among the first to provide scientific data used to understand the 6.9 magnitude earthquake that stuck the Province on Feb. 6, 2012.

Students of the NORSU Bachelor of Science in Geology now boast of having some of the same professors as their counterparts in UP Diliman after a memorandum of agreement was formalized between NORSU President Dr. Don Vicente C. Real and UP NIGS Deputy Director for Academic Affairs Dr. Ma. Ines Rosana Balangue-Tarriela.

During the event, Dr. Real said that the NORSU-UP NIGS partnership will not only strengthen the university’s curricular offering of BS Geology but will include the collaborative conduct of research and geological studies among teachers and students of both universities and the sharing of physical and intellectual resources between UP and NORSU.

The BS Geology Department, a flagship program of the University, has started holding classes featuring professors from the UP NIGS and is in the early stages of organizing a national convention that would tackle pressing geohazard and environmental issues.

The developments of the NORSU BS Geology Department have attracted the support of the likes of Freeport-McMoran Exploration Corp., the world’s largest producer of copper and gold. FMEC representative Noel Ferrer, in a simple ceremony, turned over five Brunton compasses, 10 protractor scales, 10 sample picks, 10 fifty-meter transverse measuring devices, and 10 scribers to NORSU administrators led by Dr. Real.

Physics and Geology Department Chairperson Engr. Eduardo Iso, who, together with NORSU CAS Dean Dr. Fe Violeta B. Taring, nursed the BS Geology program from its early stages, said that several other multinational companies have also indicated their intentions to donate laboratory equipment to the Geology Department to complement the laboratory upgrades and infrastructural projects that the university is currently undertaking in its desire to produce the best education for its students. (Marx Iturralde)