Professor Joyce L. Arriola, PhD, academic researcher of the Department of Literature, Department of Communication and Media Studies, and the Center for Theology, Religious Studies, and Ethics, was recently elected as the Chair of the Humanities Division of the National Research Council of the Philippines. Arriola will serve a two-year term.
During the campaign season, Arriola expressed intent to “spearhead an institutional self-assessment of the Humanities Division in order to take stock of its potentials and trajectories.” To realize these, Arriola envisions crafting of a Research Excellence Framework for the division and harnessing of the concepts of New Humanities. Arriola also expressed hope that the Division during her incumbency will “influence cultural policy-making, particularly in the areas of regional culture, creative arts, design industry, and cultural mapping,” among others.
In an interview with the Communications Bureau, Arriola said that with the chance to lead in bodies like the NRCP, the University “will benefit as we could clarify the voice of the humanities before the council through our own understanding of it. Since NRCP is [into] policy-making, policy advocacy, and research administration from the national perspective, UST will benefit in representation in the said domains.”
A multi-awarded and prolific scholar, Arriola was the NRCP’s Achievement Awardee for the Humanities in 2018. She is also the inaugural Director of the Research Center for Culture, Arts, and the Humanities. In 2021, she was named the Teodoro F. Valencia Professorial Chair Holder in Journalism.
