Woodbury University President Dr. Calingo Returns from Philippine Trip, Recounts Typhoon Devastation

Nov. 20, 2013 - PRLog -- LOS ANGELES (November 19, 2013) – Just back from the Philippines, Luis Maria R. Calingo, Ph.D, president of Woodbury University (www.woodbury.edu) is calling on Southern Californians to aid the Typhoon Haiyan relief effort and has offered a strategic approach to hasten recovery in his native country.   To help engage the community in that undertaking, Woodbury University today unveiled a microsite at: http://communication.woodbury.edu/philippines-typhoon-victims/.

Calingo and his wife arrived in Manila on November 8, just as Super-Typhoon Haiyan (known locally as “Yolanda”) made landfall in the island nation.  Calingo was in the Philippines to receive the 2013 “most distinguished engineering alumnus award” by the University of the Philippines, his alma mater.  He delivered the distinguished alumnus lecture to engineering faculty on the subject of educational practices that maximize student engagement and learning, highlighting the work in the Woodbury Integrated Student Experience (WISE).

An international expert in strategic planning and quality management, Dr. Calingo has assisted the governments of Indonesia, Mongolia, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Vietnam on the establishment and implementation of their national awards for quality and business excellence, as well as the infusion of quality assurance into their higher education systems.  He has served as a member of the Board of Examiners of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, the country’s highest award for quality and performance excellence, since 1997.  Dr. Calingo’s professional interests include servant leadership, strategic planning, total quality management and international business with a focus on Southeast Asia.

“There has been a high level of anxiety here,” Calingo writes on the microblog.  “Yolanda/Haiyan did her worst damage in only about 16 minutes!  Although this occurred sometime Friday/Saturday, news about it had only been reported last Sunday.  What is important to remember is that, although the coming of the super typhoon was predicted and that residents had prepared for it, the magnitude of the damage was not.  I simply could not fathom 3.5 times Katrina, something for which we in the U.S. were not also adequately prepared.  I have spent a lot of my free time contacting the relief organizations, including Caritas Manila, and my friends who have connections with relief organizations.”

In a Facebook post, Calingo draws on his engineering background to outline an approach to recovery: “At the risk of armchair-theorizing, let me offer my visceral reaction based on my own limited knowledge coming from the news that I have been reading and watching during my week here in Manila.

“The Philippine government needs to treat this as a large-scale supply chain and logistics problem (aka rapid movement of goods and services) under conditions of broken infrastructure.  There are two areas that should be the initial focus.  The first is to create the minimal transportation and communication infrastructure to enable relief operations.  The airport must be functional 24 hours a day; it should be cleared of debris and corpses and power (albeit from generators) need to be installed to enable 24-hour delivery of supplies from Cebu.  A second area — corollary to the first -- is to create on-the-ground conditions that would prevent further illness and damage.  Simultaneously with the above pre-tasks, architects and engineers should design standardized large-scale temporary housing.  With the above completed, heavy equipment can then be transported to the sites via air.”

Calingo was installed as Woodbury’s 13^th president in October 2012 after serving in leadership roles at Dominican University of California; the Boler School of Business at John Carroll University, the Jesuit School of Cleveland; and the College of Business Administration at California State University, Long Beach, among others.  He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh, an MBA from the University of Pittsburgh, a Master of Urban and Regional Planning from the University of the Philippines, and a B.S. in industrial engineering from the University of the Philippines.

About Woodbury University

Founded in 1884, Woodbury University is one of the oldest institutions of higher education in Southern California. Woodbury offers bachelor's degrees from the School of Architecture, School of Business, School of Media, Culture & Design, and Institute of Transdisciplinary Studies, along with an MBA program, Master of Architecture (MArch), Master of Science in Architecture (MSArch), and Master of Organizational Leadership.  The San Diego campus offers bachelor of architecture, Master of Real Estate Development for Architects (MRED), and Master of Science in Architecture, Landscape, and Urbanism degrees.  Visit www.woodbury.edu for more information.

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