CARES Seniors Present Thesis Proposal

BAGUIO CITY–Fourteen graduating seminarians of Casiciaco Recoletos Seminary (CaReS) successfully presented their Thesis Proposal. They were scheduled individually, from Tuesday, October 27, 2015 until Saturday, November 7, 2015, to face, with their thesis adviser, the three-member panel.

The following are the names of the proponents, their schedules of defense, thesis advisers and editors, and their approved Thesis Titles:

In the Thesis Proposal defense, the proponents were required to present the thesis title, background of the study, statement of the problem, significance of the study, scope and limitations, review of related literature, methodology, thesis structure, and the bibliography. Each of them was given a maximum of twenty minutes to deliver their presentation and followed by an hour of question and answer part where the panelists informed the researchers of their clarifications, corrections, suggestions, and recommendations based on the manuscript submitted to them.

Starting this formation year, 2015-2016, Recollect college seminarians are expected, as part of their requirements for graduation, to produce qualitative philosophical researches that focus on Scholasticism or the works of Augustine and Thomas Aquinas. Some may be allowed to select a philosopher of their choice but subject to the approval of the Dean of Studies. Though there were philosophical theses already submitted by graduates in the previous years, but this time, seminarians undergo a formal process of thesis writing and particularly to use the Chicago Manual of Style. Moreover, this will be the last formation year wherein Thesis Writing I course is offered during the seminarians’ fourth year level of formation but it is already transferred to their third year level (in the first semester) so the researchers will have ample time to write and come up with a quality thesis.

This academic pursuit of inculcating to both the Recollect seminarians and formators excellence through research culture is part of the requirements for Recoletos School of Theology (RST) in Quezon City, the theology school of the Recollects in the Philippines, to maintain its affiliated status with University of Sto. Tomas (UST), a Catholic, Royal, Pontifical University in España, Manila. Since the feeder school of RST is CaReS, then, UST insisted on the same demand from the college seminary of the Province of St. Ezekiel Moreno.

Also, part of the UST’s requirement is to have, at least, two resident formators who are Philosophy licentiate holders from a recognized Catholic ecclesiastical university. At present, Fray Bernard C. Amparado and Fray Joseph Philip I. Trayvilla are two CaReS formators who are both graduates of Licentiate in Philosophy from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. Fray Jose Ernil F. Almayo, the current Secretary of the Province, is also an alumnus of the same university who holds a Licentiate in Philosophy. Fray Ralph Laureen Ciceron, the former Prefect of Discipline of this seminary, is now on his first year of further studies in Philosophy in the same Jesuit-run institution in Rome.

The final thesis defense of the seminarians is scheduled starting February 2016, that is, three months before the graduating class’ Transitio et Formatio.*