US university to offer course on Philippine society

MANILA, Philippines - A university in the United States will offer this coming semester (autumn) a sociology course on Philippine Society as part of its collegiate curriculum. The course, focusing on socio-cultural characteristics of the Philippines, will be offered at Drexel University in Philadelphia in the state of Pennsylvania. Filipino professor Ernesto Arcilla, who will teach the course, said the subject introduces students to the uniqueness of Philippine culture in areas such as core values, cultural traditions, profile and structure of Filipino family and their special traits and characteristics as they differentiate with those of the western culture. “Drexel University is one of a few universities — if not the only one — offering a course on Philippine society in the continental United States,” Arcilla noted. He said that the program is inspired by a policy of Drexel University under the leadership of is president, John A. Fry, to expand its academic horizon in the worldwide educational market, including Asian countries like the Philippines. The opening of the course on Philippine society was supported by the Filipino Intercultural Society of Drexel University (FISDU), an organization of Filipinos and Filipino-Americans founded in 1995 to strengthen, represent, and spread Filipino culture in the academic community.