DE LA SALLE LIPA - Department heads and administrators from DLS - Canlubang, DLS - Dasmariņas, DLS - Health & Sciences Campus and DLS - Lipa gathered for the La Salle South cluster meeting on 9 May 2006.
Twenty-eight participants discussed best practices, concerns and possible collaboration in the fields of Human Resource, Finance, Information Technology, Engineering, Purchasing and Academics and Research. The participants were grouped according to their areas to have an in-depth discussion concerning their respective fields.
The IT group planned to form a pool of programmers for systems development, consolidated IT requirements and to come up with a network to make phone calls over the Internet for La Salle South cluster. In addition to these collaborative activities, the group initiated the mailing list for the DLS South cluster and identification of the strengths of each campus for inventory of services.
In the purchasing side, sharing of supplier contacts became the immediate response of the group members. Best practices there were identified includes revolving fund use, rotation of works among purchasing personnel and the use of intranet within the community.
Accomplishments and challenges concerning finance were likewise presented such as practices involving outstanding receivables, collection procedures and payroll systems. Synergistic efforts planned by the group to answer various concerns were standardization of policies and procedures, short term borrowings among members of the South cluster and sharing of contract involving concessionaires.
For the Buildings and Grounds group, personnel development was in their priority list. Workplace visit were necessary for the participants to identify and share first hand information and personnel expertise.
Training, evaluation, employment policies, HR information systems, recruitment referrals and agency outsourcing were areas of collaboration identified by the Human Resource administrators. The group aimed to address immediate concerns involving hiring and recruitment of qualified professors.
Academics and research, on the other hand, presented possible collaboration with other cluster schools in terms research guidelines finalization, student services, offering of orientation courses and tie-up with industries. In addition, future programs to uphold DLS Lipa's academic division includes possible tie-up with DLS Dasmariņas in offering the Master of Arts in Education and Master of Arts in Nursing.
With these endeavor, Bro. Manuel Pajarillo, President of DLS Lipa, DLS Dasmariņas and DLS - HSC, considered the La Salle South cluster meeting as a historic collaboration towards a good working relationship. Indeed, he stressed the importance of common goal in the cluster initiatives despite the little difference that might come along the way.