The UP student regent and the rhetoric of student leadership in the University of the Philippines

Issue Date

1-2017

Abstract

This study described and analyzed the rhetoric and leadership of 10 student leaders who serve as Student Regents in the University of the Philippines' (UP) Board od Regents (BOR), the highest decision- and policy-making body of the university system. The Student Regent is the sole representative of the roughly 60,000 UP students from the system's seven constituent universities.

Specifically this study examined how the rhetoric of the UP Student Regents, documented in the UP Gazette, kept by the Students Regents, and those made available via different online platforms, functioned to address exigences in the rhetorical situations during their respective terms of office. Covering 10 years of student representation in the UP BOR, the study identified exigences in the rhetorical situations that led the Students Regents to create and present rhetorical discourses (speeches, statements, and positions) to a rhetorical audience. It also analyzed how the Student Regents' brand of transformational leadership acted as constraints and substantially shaped their rhetorical discourses.

It was found out that three clusters of persisting and overarching exigences, namely: (1) assaults on UP's public character, (2) assaults on UP constituents' rights, and (3) national multi-sectoral concerns, motivate UP Student Regents to create rhetorical discourses that reflect both their ideological lines and the transformational qualities of inspirational motivation and intellectual stimulation, with the aim of arousing, organizing, and mobilizing their constituencies to work towards attaining genuine social change.

This study argues that a UP Student Regent should use rhetoric to persuade his/her audience to move beyond their self-interest and collectively fight for social change.

Source or Periodical Title

U.P. LOS BAŇOS JOURNAL

Volume

XV

Page

13-26

Document Type

Article

Frequency

annually

Physical Description

tables

Language

English

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