Dear Parents and Students of José Rizal University:

Isang Daang Taon  na Tayo Rizaliano!  Our celebration for our 100^th year continues!

Welcome back, dear students and parents. To our new students and parents, welcome to the JRU family!

JRU has a wonderful range of courses – from business, education, criminology and psychology, to information technology, multimedia and computer engineering, to hotel and restaurant management, to nursing. Our programs are uniquely created by us, for the JRU student.  They result in graduates needed by the Philippines and the world beyond it, and offer you students unlimited opportunities here and abroad.

Take, for example, the BS in Entertainment and Multimedia Computing. It’s an incredibly challenging but exciting course.  It’s not just for those who are into online games, but for those interested to see how gaming has become part of education and many businesses today.  Here at JRU, we understand that what you will learn remains important beyond the time you graduate.  Just as with any game, you need a strong base to win the battle. Imagine yourself being the brains behind these games or animation series and have a career as a lead game programmer, a tools developer or a graphics programmer.

True to our promise of caring about good education, JRU’s EDGE program has worked with key industry partners like Ayala, Philippine Institute for Supply Management (PISM), IBM, Accenture, United Philippine Lines, Source Asia Business, Mandaluyong Medical Center, and San Juan Medical Center [VF1] in preparing you for the jobs of today and tomorrow. The BSBA major in Supply Management, [VF2] developed in partnership with PISM, is a wonderful example, a response to the high demand for supply chain specialists not just in the Philippines but also abroad.  Our subject in Business Analytics is another example of preparing students for the demands of the future.

When you are in JRU, you can be assured that these programs are backed by fantastic faculty and systems, as audited by third-party quality standards.  We continue to be an ISO 9001-2015 rated university, and institutionally accredited by the PACUCOA.  We are an Autonomous University and a Center of Excellence in Business – the highest levels of quality recognition from the Commission on Higher Education.  Our courses have continued to surpass the national average of the PRC for more than two decades now.  Whether it is our Law School, the Graduate School’s programs in Business, Entrepreneurship, Health Management, Public Administration, or Education, our College, High School or Elementary School, every single one is backed up by these and similar standards.  When you go to JRU, you really do get a good education.

All these courses have a strong employability rating of 93% or higher, based on employment 6 months after graduation.  This is an achievement I share with our faculty members who play an important role in fulfilling the mission of the University.

I always say that a university is only as good as its people.  JRU continues to invest in the best teachers and professors for you. Over 80% percent of our faculty have masteral or doctoral degrees, and/or are industry practitioners. They teach, mentor, guide, engage in community programs, and do research. Their research gets accepted into international conferences for paper presentations.  They have delivered their research around the world, from Cebu to Davao, to Iran, Turkey, Thailand, Macau, Shanghai, Myanmar, and the United Kingdom.  It is this worldwide knowledge that we want you to have. 

Faculty isn’t the only ones abroad.  We have students (in high school and college) traveling the world to do internships in the USA and Singapore; cultural and educational visits to China and Malaysia, and research and technology exposure visits to Taiwan and Japan.

Learning also happens outside the classroom, so a good university has to make sure the student can do this.  JRU is a beautiful campus-university, located in the middle of the most urbanized city in the Philippines, Metro Manila.  This combination of a relaxing campus with trees and greens and a central city location is rare but so worthwhile. We want you, our students, to be able to work in a lab one instance—zipping through with among the fastest school wifis in Metro Manila (at 5x your mobile plans)--then walk around and sit under a tree right after, where you can study or just hang out  with your friends.

But what makes it more exciting here at JRU is our 100 years of history.  We have been very busy the past year celebrating our centennial.  We had started with a concert led by Parokya ni Edgar, together with Calla Lily, Sandwich, I Belong to the Zoo and Jason Fernandez here at our quadrangle. How can we ever forget the centennial concert held at the Araneta Coliseum last February 19, 2019 with Bamboo and Iñigo Pascual.   [VF4] We’ve done – faculty, students and staff—100 Good Deeds, through outreach programs from Mandaluyong to Tondo, to Batangas, Mindoro and Rizal. It’s all part of the intense experience that is JRU.

Lastly, we have been putting up our Centennial Building, and you will be among its first occupants!  Enjoy it, complete with a great student lounge overlooking the quadrangle under the shade of old trees, and a library of the future on the fifth floor.  Be creative in the music and dance room, or perform and watch in the 400-seater auditorium, overlooking the city. 

It will be another exciting year at José Rizal University, including the construction of another campus in Lipa City.  Regardless, whichever campus you enroll in, you can be assured of the JRU promise to care about your good education.

The celebration of our 100-year history of José Rizal University continues! Remember you are important to us and I encourage you to continue sharing with us on how we can make your stay and education more meaningful and fun.

I’ll see you at JRU.

Mabuhay Rizal!

Vincent K. Fabella