Update: Grand Alumni Homecoming 2009

Upcoming Grand Alumni Homecoming:

We will be celebrating our 61st USC Foundation Week, and one of the highlights is the Grand Alumni Homecoming with its theme "Renewing Dedication, Confirming Loyalty". This will be held at the Grand Convention Center of Cebu, Archbishop Reyes Avenue, Cebu City on Sunday, August 30, 2009. Registration starts at 2:00 pm and followed by the Eucharistic Celebration and the Awarding of the Most Outstanding Alumni. Tickets are available at P 300.00, for more information you may call Fe or Beth at 253-5495 or 253-100 local 129.

"Renewing Dedication, Confirming Loyalty"
(Theme for USC Grand Alumni Homecoming 2009)

The USC Alumni Association was established early on when the SVD Fathers took over the former Colegio de San Carlos in 1935. The organization as envisioned was to be a means to perpetuate the dedication of the students after graduation to the ideals of St. Charles Borromeo, the reformer of seminary system and educational work of the Church. He pushed for the proper and excellent training of priest and religious while also being noted for his concern for the youth to receive adequate educational opportunity for both personal and professional development.

This dedication to St. Charles’ ideals was expressed in the school’s original motto: Scientia et Virtus (Knowledge and Moral Strength). For its student’s identity, the name Carolinians was adopted thereby signifying their being guided and formed according to the ideals of St. Charles in their educational training in the arts, culture, and science together with their religious formation and activities. In the manner, a uniquely Carolinian spirit was to be established. To make this a life-long legacy for Carolinians, it was not by accident that the school’s yearbook was titled “Semper Fidelis” (Ever Faithful). This is to mean that Carolinians are always to remain faithful to the Truth they know and the Christian values they have learned to accept as theirs to live and abide by ideally during their entire life.
Members of the USC Alumni Association would then take pride in the privilege of having imbibed during their educational training, above and beyond acquiring the competence in their elected profession, the Christian attitude of fraternal love and gratitude. As an expression of this spirit, successful alumni members are to assist the institution in its endeavour to pursue consistently educational excellence, and provide other students who follow especially among the poor but deserving among them to receive also a good education.

In real life, however, Carolinians are not immune to the worldly spirit of the quest for wealth, prestige, and power generated by the modern social atmosphere of materialism and hedonism which negates the concern for the “common good” of all – the right for all to possess and enjoy equally the largesse of God’s creation. The noble Christ-given model of sufficiency for oneself and sharing with others has become practically meaningless to most people. Rather, the rich and influential become richer and more powerful, while the poor becomes poorer and utterly marginalized. Because of this, in the contemporary world we live, greed, corruption, violence, and disregard for human life dominate the landscape of our existence.

We observed, therefore, that there seems to be another value-aspect needed to help change this appalling situation. The application of knowledge (scientia) and the exercise of moral strength (virtus) are not enough. The dynamic dimension of Christ’s “do unto others as what you would like others do unto you” – that is to serve others in love is essential. This is the providential reason for adding the third word in the University motto – Devotio (service) – to complete the reality of the Trinitarian relationship between God and human beings among themselves as children of God.

To realize our vision of a world of love, justice and harmony revealed to us by Christ as possible even now –“the kingdom of God is upon you” and beyond this world of chaos, all and particularly speaking about Carolinians as men and women of faith, they have to renew their dedication to the institutional ideas of USC and confirm once again their loyalty to guide their lives with the knowledge of Truth, the moral strength derived from the obedience to God’s will, and service to others in love.
In this manner Carolinians can make a difference, even just to light a candle, in the world of darkness enveloped by the miasma of evil. Such will be the basis of our strong hope to see a future better world for the generations who follow us.