Community Relations of the University of Bohol

Abstract

Relations with the community of higher educational institutions is a necessary dimension in factoring their institutional sustainability as this fits the generational psyche of both the academe, in their shift from knowledge dispensing to learner-centered, and the students’ desire to build social frameworks. The bodies of knowledge relating to community relations, from experiential learning to service learning, supports this necessity for the academe’s role of scholarship engagement. A study was made on the perceptions of the university stakeholders on the indicators for institutional sustainability, adapted from the CHED QA tool, on the issues of relevance of community programs, funding adequacy for the programs, and degree of participation by the school and its constituents. The researcher formulated survey questions were distributed to and answered by key institutional stakeholders: the administrators, faculty members, non-teaching personnel, and students. The sample size for each group of respondents was one-third of their population. The differences in their responses were analyzed through weighted means and group means compared pairwise using Tukey’s honest significance difference (HSD) value. The analysis revealed that the stakeholders were of the same perception that the institutional sustainability attributes on relations with the community for the university were program-relevant, well-funded, and well participated.