Virginia B.
Bautista, CAS
The PuRpLe Story
How to Paint your Career in the Academe
by Virginia B. Bautista
Life in the academe is like a canvas. When one enters the
academe as a faculty member, the canvas is just a plain
surface waiting to be painted on. It is then up to the faculty to
paint on the canvas, to create a design, and to choose what
color to use. Through the use of desired colors and design,
the canvas comes alive, and in conquering the white space, colors
can do the trick.
The color purple symbolizes royalty and good judgment. It is a
combination of red, the warmest color, and blue, the coolest color.
My personal preference for the color purple is a statement that may
be effectively conveyed even in the absence of words.
Just like preference for a color, in my case purple, a teacher needs
to advocate something. This advocacy radiates and can eventually
have impact on the people outside oneself. Ideally, the teacher’s
advocacy must be aligned with his or her expertise and experiences.
Student empowerment. Freedom with responsibility.
Media Literacy. Originality.
These are the concepts I constantly adhere to. All of these
are reflected on the decisions I make, on the projects I initiate, on
the authentic activities I design for my students, on every
innovation I introduce in class, on my researches, on the seminars
and conventions I participate in, and even on the way I speak and
the way I deal with people on a day-to-day basis.
Teachers don’t have to become walking dictionaries who
can give people the correct meaning and right pronunciation of
words. What they believe in is enough to make them a distinct
character in the academe.
A teacher who advocates nothing is not a teacher. A
teacher who seems to advocate everything is no good either.
Teachers have responsibilities to educate not only their
students in a four-walled classroom at PS Building, but also all the
people they come in contact with.
This is possible by explicitly advocating something.
Our advocacy, as teachers, will show, and students can
easily pick it up.
Even if some people around me frown at the sight of the
color purple, I still proudly say, “I love purple.” No matter how
much other people condemn what we advocate, we have to stick to
it until they become one of us. That’s the power of spillover effect.
The PURPLE story is about my advocacy as a
member of the academe, and how I paint my career throughout
my almost 11 years at AUF.
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 Virginia B. Bautista, CAS
CHAPTER 1
Being solution-oriented is the best solution
to our problems.
“Teachers who are leaders lead within and beyond the classroom,
identify with and contribute to a community of teacher learners and
leaders, and influence others towards improved educational
practice.”
– Katzenmeyer and Moller, 1994
As a member of the faculty, I’ve always believed that
teachers are also leaders in their own ways. As a teacher-leader, I
don’t have to wait for the Dean to tell me what to do. I don’t have
to rely on our department Chair to tell me how to utilize the eight-
hour working hours in school.
A teacher-leader knows his/her duties and responsibilities.
A teacher-leader sees the problem and is highly capable of
doing necessary actions to deal with the problem.
Welcome to the first chapter of the purple story.
I am from the College of Arts & Sciences. CAS offers three
academic programs, and caters to all the other colleges by providing
competent faculty members to handle General Ed. subjects.
As a member of the faculty, I teach professional subjects in
AB Mass Communication (old curriculum) and AB in Communication
program.
One of the highlights of my contributions to AUF, I believe,
would be the birth of the new curriculum which phased out the old
curriculum as per CHED order.
The revision of the ABMC curriculum in AUF actually
happened after I attended the National Public Hearing on the
Proposed Policies and Standards on BA Broadcasting and MA in
Broadcasting in Baguio City on March 22, 2007. The public hearing
was conducted by the Commission on Higher Education.
One officer from CHED-RO in Region 3 asked me what
Comm. program AUF offers. When I told her that we use ABMC
program, she immediately told me that the ABMC program has
already been changed by CHED through CMO 44, Series of 1997.
The memo reiterated that the generalist course in Comm. program
shall be called AB in Communication. I studied the old curriculum
and reviewed Comm. curricula in established universities in the
country, for benchmarking, and, with the support of our Dean and
other faculty members from the department, I was able to revise
the curriculum. This is now being used by the students enrolled in
the program.
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As the program coordinator in 2005, I was also tasked to
serve as the Internship adviser of the graduating students. Being in
that post made me see a series of problems in the Internship
program for the Communication students.
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 Virginia B. Bautista, CAS
Instead of simply complaining about the problems I
inherited from the former program coordinator, I devised some
ways on how to solve the problems.
I created a standard evaluation tool to be utilized by
Internship supervisors in evaluating the performance of the interns
from AUF. Prior to the creation of this tool, student-interns didn’t
know where to get evaluation forms to give to their Internship
supervisors. Some networks have their own tools, but some,
especially the local stations, do not have any.
With this Internship Evaluation tool, our Interns get to be
evaluated by their Internship supervisors using the same criteria.
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The tool I created didn’t solve all the problems in the
Internship program for Communication students. I noticed that
students always have questions regarding their internship and how
to go about it. Instead of relying on the face-to-face meeting, which
happened only before and after the Internship program (because
students usually have Internship in Manila), I prepared the
Broadcast Internship Guidelines which students could refer to
every time they have questions regarding the Internship program.
With clear instructions and templates for the requirements
for the program, students would feel that they are more closely
monitored and being fairly evaluated for the effort they exert for
their internship outside the campus.
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To make the Internship program more interesting and less
unpredictable for the incoming senior students who are expected to
start with their internship, I organized an Internship Forum where
the senior students could share their internship experiences with
the incoming seniors.
The forum allowed the incoming seniors to ask about the
preparations necessary for an Intern, the expenses in having
internship in Manila, e.g. the boarding expenses, food allowance,
transportation allowance, etc. All the sharing could actually
contribute to the decision-making of the incoming seniors in
choosing a company for internship.
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As of now, the Internship program is still not perfect, but I
intend to make it better, if not the best in the region, so that even if
I cease being the program coordinator/vice chair, the students’ right
to have a fulfilling and worry-free internship would be guarded.
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Aside from the administrative task in the college, the Dean
also assigned me as the PR and Marketing representative for the
college. As such, I visited high schools, at times with the staff of the
Guidance and Counseling Center, to hold career orientation. I am
specifically tasked to market the three programs in the college: BS
Biology, BS Psychology and ABMC/AB Comm.
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 Virginia B. Bautista, CAS
Again, I was sent, at the beginning, without any weapon. I
had to create something so that I would not end up relying on my
memory on what the college offers.
To help me in presenting the course offerings in the CAS, I
designed an audio-video presentation, aside from the Power Point
presentation, highlighting the need to choose a course offered in
our college.
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CHAPTER 2
Helping our students achieve their dreams could
lead to achievement of our own dreams.
Some students might still be wondering why they need to
attend formal school, or why there is a demand for a university
degree. They haven’t found the answer, but I just did.
Opportunity to discover and nurture their talent – this,
among others, is what schools provide for the students.
In my almost 11 years of teaching, I realized that my
Communication students are indeed talented, though of course,
they don’t have the same talent. Some are good in speaking, some
excel in writing, some are at their best when acting onstage, some
can entertain viewers, some can play with the imagination of the
listeners, and some have the immense ability to influence their
fellow students.
However, despite their given talent, most of them have the
same problem: they just don’t know they’re good at something.
And even if they are aware of how good they are, most have no way
of finding opportunities to express and nurture their talent.
A teacher-leader can turn a student-next-door type into an
award-winning or remarkable type.
As a teacher-leader, I feel that I have a responsibility not
just to make my own dreams come true, but also to help my
students make their dreams turn into reality.
With all sincerity, I’d like to believe that this is what makes
me different from other teachers. I don’t just dream for myself. I
also make effort to dream for my students, and to let them know I
have dreams for them. And through the years, I realized, “It pays
to dream big for my students.”
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Last April, I receive an email opening an invitation to all Comm.
students who might be interested to join the cadetship at ABS-CBN
News and Current Affairs.
On the day I received this invitation, I immediately called
for an “emergency meeting” (because the deadline for application
was just a week away) with the junior students. I told them about
the invitation and encouraged them to join.
I had two or three students who intended to apply as
cadets.
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 Virginia B. Bautista, CAS
Fortunately, one of them, Ms Cherry Anne M. Mungcal,
sent her application, and passed the screening. When she told me
she got accepted, and that she was the only cadet from outside
Metro Manila, it made me really glad. It made me really proud.
Being one of the cadets made Cherry more confident and it, in a
way, made AUF be known among the students from Manila, and
among the veteran broadcasters in the giant network in the
country. In fact, when I spoke to Cherry, she told me she was so
proud when she introduced herself as a student from AUF because
she felt fortunate for being among the cadets for the May 2010
election coverage.
The reality that some companies measure fresh graduates
on the basis of where they studied in college is still true. Because of
this, I have made a commitment to myself to continue making AUF
Comm. students visible and active in seminars/workshops both in
the national and international level.
I guess, this has a story too. In 2006, I attended a research
conference in UP College of Mass Communication. After the
conference, we were told to claim our certificates at the three
booths outside the UP-CMC auditorium. When I looked for the
booth where I could claim our certificates, the labels on the booths
really annoyed me:
Booth 1: UP, Ateneo, DLSU, Miriam College
Booth 2: FEU, St. Paul, La Salle-Dasma
Booth 3: Others
I felt so uncomfortable waiting in line at Booth 3 with the
label “others.” While I was claiming the certificates, I told the
organizers to be careful about labeling of schools because it has a
discriminatory effect. I directly told them, “Bakit may school bang
others? Three letters lang naman ang kailangan to write our school’s
name, bakit nasa others pa? How did you label schools?” The
organizer said sorry, but I learned from that experience. I have to
make AUF stand out, so as not to be labeled as “others.”
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Last year was a milestone in my career. It was the year I
was able to prove that I could actually produce a globally
competitive student.
Jung, Dea-Woung’s (his English name is Charles, ABMC
Batch 2009) thesis was accepted for a paper presentation in India.
It was a dream-come-true for me, honestly. Well, it didn’t happen
by accident. Making that dream come true was a dream that took
me a year to realize. I actually thought one year is too short to
make such dream come true.
Let me tell you the story behind this dream-come-true
tale.
In July 2008, I attended the AMIC (Asian Media Information
and Communication Centre) Annual Conference at the Manila Hotel.
The university funded my participation on this international
convention held here in the country. As a usual practice, I also
invited students to attend the conference with me. I had a few
students with me then: Jaimee Granados, Li, Feng, Mary Jane
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 Virginia B. Bautista, CAS
Olidan, Manuel Domingo Jr., and Jung, Dea-Woung. Ms. Cristina
Reyes, the Director of the Multi-Media Center was also with us.
Charles and I traveled for four days to and from Angeles
City just to participate on the international conference. While
listening to the paper presentations, I told Charles that we could
also write research article for presentation, and so we literally
agreed to join the next year’s conference by sending a research
output, which we agreed to be his thesis. But of course, he has to
make me his thesis adviser . With this agreement, we made sure
that his topic was aligned with the topic covered by the next year’s
conference. We chose Media and Youth, and later thought of
writing a research on online gaming. We were both online gamers,
and coincidentally, we both played, at one point of our lives, the
same MMORPG (massive multi-player online role-playing game),
called the World of Warcraft. Charles played with the Korean
server, while I used to play with the UK server.
We were literally in a hurry finishing his thesis. I would
sometimes go to his house and discussed the thesis with him. We
exchanged e-mails a lot of times in a week just to beat the deadline.
Then, the deadline just passed without us realizing it. I told myself if
it would be extended, we could have another chance. A few days
after, Charles told me, “Ma’am, it’s extended.”
We immediately worked on the abstract and sent it to the
organizer, while keeping our fingers crossed.
Until Charles’ graduation day, and until he went back for
good to his home country, we didn’t get any notification of
acceptance for the paper.
The ‘good news’ came on the first week of June. I was very
thankful to AUF for funding my travel to India for the paper
presentation.
While in New Delhi with Charles, and while I was looking at
the faces of the audience members who came from different
universities in India, Malaysia, the Philippines, New Zealand,
Singapore, Australia, etc., I couldn’t help thinking, “This dream just
happened so fast…”
Who would ever think that a thesis advisee could help me
achieve this dream? Of course, it was also a dream-come-true for
Charles. Being able to present a paper using English, when it is not
his second language, is one of his best experiences.
By the way, Charles was a shifter. I first became his
teacher in English 2 when he was enrolled as an ECE student. He
shifted to AB Mass Communication the semester after .
---------------------------------------------------------------
When I came back to the department after spending a
week in New Delhi with Charles, I shared with my colleagues how
helping students with their theses bring opportunities for us in a
way that we don’t expect. Helping students achieve their dreams
could, in turn, make us achieve our own dreams. There’s nothing
wrong with dreaming with students, especially if your dreams are
the same or aligned.
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 Virginia B. Bautista, CAS
This reminds me of what Mitch Albom said in his book HAVE
A LITTLE FAITH. He said:
“I thought I was being asked a favor,
when in fact, I was being given one.”
Helping students with their theses is not always a favor we
do for them. Sometimes, it comes more as a favor being given to
us. But of course, a blessing has a way of disguising itself as
something else.
Collaborating with students is such a rewarding experience
because they
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In previous years, I was focused on encouraging my
students to join in Documentary Film Competitions. In 2008, I
encouraged my students to on a filmmaking contest organized by
the UP College of Medicine.
We might have not made it as winners, but one of our
entries was chosen as finalists in the BEST DOCU category. When
we attended the awards night, the fulfillment I felt and my students
felt was no different from being winners. My students’ output was
judged by the finest filmmaking critics in the country. Being a
finalist is already synonymous to being winners.
Learning from these docu experiences, I thought not
having the finest equipment is not a limitation. My students’
resourcefulness is much more important than having the best
equipment.
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I don’t know but seeing students achieve something
rewarding gives a sense of fulfillment on my part. In 2006, I made a
decision to turn my thesis writing class into a special project class. I
encouraged my students to produce a documentary film following
the guidelines given on one invitation which invited students to
send their docu films for a chance to win cash prizes and plaque.
It wasn’t easy to produce docu films, especially following
the specifications given by the organizer. That time, I didn’t fully
trust myself in judging whether my students’ films were worth
sending to a national competition. I asked a couple of critics, both
of them are media practitioners, to help my students improve on
their craft. I saw how my students used their resourcefulness just
to come up with a competitive film.
Fortunately, my students were awarded as Champion and
st
1 runner –up. I had two entries, and both entries won. I thought it
was unbelievable. We competed with docu filmmakers from other
schools in Manila and Luzon.
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It is already part of my ritual every semester to send
students to seminars and conferences, even if it means I also have
to travel with them and endure the noise in the van/bus (just
kidding).
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 Virginia B. Bautista, CAS

My Communication students deserve the best
opportunities AUF can offer. Although I am the only full-time
communication instructor in school for many years now, I made it
sure that every semester, my students get to learn from the media
practitioners themselves, through regular participation on
conferences and seminars. Most of the time when we attend
seminars in Manila, AUF is the only school outside Metro Manila
which is represented.
The largest delegation I had in one conference was in 2009
at the International Convention on Media Communication held at
UP Film Theater. 101 AB Comm. students registered for the event.
It’s also the best part because it gives me an opportunity to
know who really knows me and how much they know me.
It was an overwhelming experience for me to hear what
my heads, peers and students have to say about me. The truth is,
their recommendations are enough reward for me in my over 10
years of teaching.
To earn my heads’ and students’ trust is enough to make
me do more than what is expected of me. I guess, nothing compares
to the feeling of having the dean say that I have “contributed
significantly to the successful operation of the college.”

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CHAPTER 3

Teachers, like students, need to be trusted

and recognized

For me, the best and worst part of joining a competition is

seeking for recommendation letters from heads, peers, and
students.

It’s the worst because I don’t really enjoy asking for a favor
from people who are also busy with their own lives. I understand
that if they devote some of their precious time for me, they would
have to give up some time for themselves.

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 Virginia B. Bautista, CAS

CHAPTER 4 On the kind of teacher I am in the classroom, I guess, only my

students can say.
Teachers need to give students good reason to
attend their classes.
In my case, I am not sure if I would still have students in
class if the subject I'm teaching is optional. All I am sure of is that for
over ten years, I've been branded by students as their "worst
Bimonte (2005) asks a question worth reflecting on: nightmare" (thanks to my BS Engineering student then) and
"ultimate guru" (Hi Aie!).
If Your Class Were Optional,
Would Anyone Attend? Reference:

Bimonte, R (2005). If your class were optional, would anyone attend? Momentum. 36 (4) pp 6-7. Retrieved July 20, 2008 from
I guess all teachers should think about this question so that http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb

no student would be confused and skeptic of the reason for them to

wake up early just to listen to a lecture they don't find engaging.
Bimonte (2005) says:

"Students must be actively engaged and emotionally involved in CHAPTER 5

their learning. If the classroom teacher is centered, only one
Innovation is an effective tool to break monotony in
person is really engaged. In a student-centered classroom, the
the four-walled classroom.
teachers facilitate student learning by providing opportunities for
students to do, think, discover, and find answers
to their questions themselves."
In one semester, I do teach four or five different
professional subjects. Fortunately or unfortunately, I have the same
students every semester. AB Comm. students are in my classes

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 Virginia B. Bautista, CAS

from their second year till they write their theses on their final year.
At times, I enter the same class twice in a day.
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Because of this, I can predict that if my teaching styles and
TEACHING/LEARNING WITH MEDIA, THROUGH MEDIA AND
strategies are the same every semester, my students would be
bored to death. Imagine if I would just read Power Point ABOUT MEDIA
presentations every time I come to class. For sure, the students
My first attempt in innovation through the use of the
would just end up waiting for the last slide so that the class gets
Internet was bringing my students to the blogosphere, through
dismissed. I never want to make my classes with the same students
regular posting of entries on web logs. I started doing this in 2006
monotonous and predictable, because monotony bores students, so
with my E-newsroom class. I got an overwhelmingly positive
same teacher every semester is a sure way to leave the students
response from my students, so I realized web logs can indeed be
uninterested in the subject.
used as a teaching-learning tool. Back then, very few professors of
Communication, based on the survey conducted by a professor
This is why it has been my habit to think of something new
to offer every semester for every subject. I make sure I do from UP –College of Mass Communication (UP-CMC), was using
blogs in teaching.
something which I haven’t done in our previous classes. And to do
this, I acquaint myself with what the students find interesting which
It was then a turning point in the way I teach
could also make them maximize learning.
Communication subjects. I began to re-engineer the teaching-
The answer to monotony and boring classes and learning environment in my classes, by teaching/learning WITH
MEDIA, THROUGH MEDIA, and ABOUT MEDIA.
unmotivated students, I’ve realized, is INNOVATION every semester.
Innovation, however, should be based on what could be interesting
Technology, primarily the Internet, is now part of my
or exciting for the students, not for the teacher.
students’ lives, so I have to keep pace with them, or be ahead of
I’ve observed that most, if not all, of my students are into them, so that we could both become engaged with the lessons
through something common between us – THE USE OF
technology, particularly the Internet. Undoubtedly, almost all of
them are online most of their free time. MEDIA/INTERNET.

To date, I’ve introduced the following to my students: (a)

This is the reason many of my innovation is anchored on the
idea of using the Internet to put a twist in the three-unit class. web log using www.blogger.com ; (b) using a community journalism
site, www.allvoices.com where my students can have global

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 Virginia B. Bautista, CAS
readership from the Philippines, Australia, the US, the UK, or even
as far as Barbados or the Caribbean; (c) utilizing a site where
documents can be shared and downloaded for effective file-sharing,
www.scribd.com; and (d) by creating their own news web site
where they could encourage comments for feedback.
A teacher may just be facing the Internet, a single
technology created to enhance teaching-learning, but a creative
teacher sees multiple innovation that the Internet can offer. It’s
handy and really interesting for the students from the present
generation.
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Of course, I also make some effort not to forget that being in the
real world still matters a lot, so aside from conquering the
cyberspace, I also brought my students outside AUF, for a
community service. I didn’t ask them to distribute relief goods,
which they do a lot in their NSTP classes. Instead, I asked my
students to become teachers for a day.
To let them conduct seminar-workshop for high school
students in public school, of course, they must have learned from
my input in class first. The workshop we conducted for the HS
students also became a test on how well my students understood
the lesson, how far they can remember the significant concepts, and
how effectively they can share the knowledge they gained from our
classes.
During the seminar-workshop at Angeles City National High
School and at Bonifacio Romero National HS in EPZA, I felt so
fulfilled having creative and knowledgeable students who found
fulfillment in sharing their knowledge with the young generation.
A teacher, definitely, can affect not only the students he or
she deals with, but also those whom they get to deal with. It’s the
domino effect of teachers. And it’s very much alive among the
students.
A real teacher recognizes the fact that the classroom is not
the only place, and will never be the only place to learn. The
classroom is just the starting point where basic knowledge can be
shared, but the real experience which is equally significant is found
outside the air-conditioned PS 212 and beyond class hours.
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when innovation meets authenticity in
Indeed,
teaching/learning, nothing else can be more
interesting and significant.
CHAPTER 6
A teacher is more than a teacher.
A real teacher cares not only about what’s happening in the
classroom. A real teacher goes beyond the eight-hour job
requirement to extend assistance, and to show concern for the
department and for the university.
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 Virginia B. Bautista, CAS
These can be manifested through taking other
responsibilities, e. g. serving as advisers for organizations,
representing the college in university affairs, and in welcoming
committee tasks.
Despite the really busy schedule teaching four to five
different subjects in a week to complete the 18-unit loads, I still
made time to serve as advisers of the CAS Ideas, the official
students publication of our college, and to serve as adviser of
SAMASKOM, the non-mandated organization of Communication
students in the university.
Then, just last academic year, I was given an opportunity to
work with the Faculty-Library Committee (FLC). I got to work with
the University Director and her staff.
There’s no doubt that working with them made me grow as
a member of the faculty. Conceptualizing, coordinating and making
the National Book Week celebration a successful endeavor wasn’t a
joke. It made the whole library staff’s hands full, but when I saw
them work, I realized how fortunate AUF is for having dedicated
employees in and outside the academic sphere.
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An real teacher is also a researcher. I often remember what
Dr. Archie David, my professor in Philosophy classes, said --- that
the teacher’s dissertation should not be the last research a faculty
should engage himself with.
This is definitely true.
A real teacher finds fulfillment in solving problems in the
society through his research skills. Research is a noble and
academic way to contribute to the body of knowledge, so a teacher
is not just a teacher, but a researcher as well. As a researcher and
teacher at the same time, a real teacher gets to be acknowledged as
an ‘expert.’ So how can a professor be cited as expert if the only
research he has done is his dissertation, which is obviously done
primarily to fulfill the requirements toward earning a degree?
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CHAPTER 7
A teacher finds wisdom in delegation
and trust.
As a teacher who also functions as class adviser, committee
chair, thesis adviser, researcher, and is expected to revise syllabi,
check papers, introduce innovation, compute for grades, ensure
quality of instruction, etc., etc., I have to find a way to make myself
efficient. I do this by delegating.
A real teacher does not have to literally do everything.
I believe in the wisdom of delegating tasks among my
students. When I do this, I get to give them a sense of being
important and reliable, and at the same time, it frees me some time
which I may use to attend to other matters.
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 Virginia B. Bautista, CAS

For example, for the research I’m working on at the

moment, I asked who among my junior Communication students
were willing to help me administer a survey. When I announced it
in class, I was surprised because all of the students willingly raised
their hands and said they wanted to do it.

So, why not?

students are indeed

A real teacher knows that

worth working with and AUF worth

working for. 

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To paint purple on my career in AUF means dealing

effectively with my students, with my colleagues, and with myself,
using the best AUF has to offer.

If resources are limited, our resourcefulness, dedication,

concern and creativity can supply what’s missing.

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