Even inclement weather could not stop the UP Diliman (UPD) School of Statistics (STAT) from celebrating its 70th anniversary in grand style on July 22.
STAT kicked off the celebrations with Traces, a parade that took participants on an afternoon trip down memory lane.
Traces was a walking tour of the campus, stopping at locations with historical significance for the school. It began with a program at the auditorium, where STAT Dean Joseph Ryan Lansangan warmly welcomed the assembly and explained the theme for the event: Stat 70 the Future: Trailblazing Today, Transforming Tomorrow.
“[It] conveys the goal of igniting a collective drive for progress and inspiring the next generation of statisticians to be catalysts of transformative change. It also mirrors the school’s mission of advancing the development and maintenance of a high level of efficiency in statistical activities in the country and in the Asia-Pacific Region, and our vision for a Filipino society that is literate in statistics,” he said.
Clad in blue and wearing festive party hats, the assembly, composed of freshmen, alumni, faculty, and staff, set off from the STAT building in front of the UPD Office of the University Registrar, down the UPD Academic Oval to the UPD Sunken Garden Grandstand and between the UPD National Engineering Center and Melchor Hall.
Each “station” had representatives from STAT’s various student organizations. They relayed the school’s story, from its beginnings in December 1953 as the Statistical Training Center then later as the Statistical Center, to its elevation as the School of Statistics in 1998, to having its final and very own building along T. Kalaw Avenue.
In 1979, the Statistical Training Center was moved from Padre Faura in Manila to its first home in UPD: the fifth floor of the College of Business Administration or CBA (now known as the UPD Cesar E.A. Virata School of Business building). It was at the CBA building when the Statistical Training Center was renamed the Statistical Center.
The school moved to its next home in 2004, a one-story facility at the corner of Magsaysay Avenue and Apacible Street (once occupied by the UPD College of Social Work and Community Development). In 2006, STAT was named a Center of Excellence in Statistics by the Commission on Higher Education, and in 2014, the school’s BS Statistics program received international accreditation from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Universities Network.
The parade came full circle, returning to the STAT building, where the assembly was treated to snacks and a closing ceremony
Traces was the first in a series of STAT’s yearlong festivities, which include a symposium series from August to November, training and workshops, exhibits, staff recognition rites, outreach programs, and fundraising activities.