SPACE & PTSP’s Bayanihan Project - MOU

“No History, No Self. Know History, Know Self.” is a quote interpreted from José Rizal which unifies the idea that we are here because of our ancestors, and if we do not know what was sacrificed by our ancestors we would not be approaching our culture with the proper understanding. The knowledge of the history of Samahang Pilipino Advancing Community Empowerment (SPACE) and the Pilipino Transfer Student Partnership’s ((PTSP) Bayanihan Project appears to be scarce amongst current members of both projects. Commonly, in academics in western culture students are taught dates and names. There is less of a personal approach when it comes to learning about history which disconnects the current members to their ancestors. I strive to examine the history of the Bayanihan Project and the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with SPACE and PTSP with in depth personal interviews to gain the perspective of PTSP and SPACE board members when the Bayanihan Project and MOU were proposed. I will also assess the current Bayanihan Investment Coordinator (BIC), Bayanihan Project Coordinator (BPC), SPACE’s Project Director and SPACE’s El Camino Site Coordinator on the current state of the Bayanihan Project and see if it has continued to progress toward the mission and vision of the project. SPACE Advisory Board (A-Board) consists of SPACE's Project Coordinator, Access Coordinator, Assistant Project Coordinator, PTSP's Chairperson and BPC. Additionally, I will be looking into factors that may be affecting the work of the Bayanihan Project like the limited amount of time transfers have at UCLA contributing to their highly stressful second year,  the BPC and BIC’s involvement in SPACE like staff meetings, retreats and going to site, and the acknowledgement that the BPC and BIC do not get paid for their work that often aligns with the work of the two SPACE admin positions.

Oral Interviews
Jean Paul Schumacher: Cofounder of the Bayanihan Project (2004-2005), SPACE Project Director (2008-2011)

Janelle Gayac: Bayanihan Investment Coordinator (2018-2019)

Alyssa Marie Dones: SPACE Internship Coordinator (2017-2018), El Camino Site Coordinator (2018-2019)

What is your current understanding of the Bayanihan Project and its history?

My current understanding of the Bayanihan Project is that it was created at 2005. The Bayanihan Project was created in order to combat community conditions faced by Pilipino students at community college. People like JP Schumacher, among others, noticed that at their community colleges that they lacked relevant education. They decided to work in order to provide that relevant education as well as combating the community conditions faced by Pilipino students. The aim of the Bayanihan Project is not only to spread awareness of the Pilipino culture, but to help our marginalized community in their pursuit of higher education. Eventually, through the Bayanihan Project, PTSP partnered with SP through SPACE because that mission and vision aligned-- this was realized in 2009 when they added the El Camino College site.

How have you seen growth in the Bayanihan Project throughout the year?

I can only speak to the growth in the Bayanihan Project this year. Because of the nature of the transfer experience, I was only involved in the Bayanihan Project for one year. This year, the Bayanihan Project has definitely grown in the sense that it holds a lot more stakes in the community. One of the things I helped vote for in A-Board SPACE was changing the 2 unit P/NP internship class to a 4 unit class. Just that change was instrumental in showing the importance of and legitimizing all of the work the Bayanihan Investment Coordinator does. This year, I also helped establish and make the roles of the BPC a lot more clear. The language of these organizations are hard to grasp at first, so making sure my successor truly understands the roles and expectations of the BPC is extremely important.
 

What have been some challenges you have faced in your position and your involvement with the Bayanihan Project?

Because of the nature of PTSP and its high turnaround rate, I came into the Bayanihan Project Coordinator position with clear gaps in knowledge. Even though the MOU enumerated some of my roles and responsibilities, I was not transitioned particularly well and I did not know what my position entailed and how it fit into the structure of SPACE, PTSP and the Bayanihan Project. It was difficult navigating through the language each organization spoke to, and it was even more difficult injecting myself into that system. Due to personal characteristics and reasons, it was difficult to integrate myself into the two systems because I was not directly involved in internal workings of either organization. A lot of the work I did was external and learning how to act within the two, building repoirt, and understanding the needs of each organization was difficult for me.
 

What is your current perspective of the relationship between SPACE and PTSP?

Even though the relationship with SPACE and PTSP has grown closer these past few years because of the creation of the Memorandum of Understanding, which is a written agreement between SPACE and PTSP regarding the roles, responsibilities, and expectations that these organizations have with each other, I believe that there is still a large potential of growth in this relationship. Based on my personal experience, while there is a direct relationship between the two through the Bayanihan Project, I think that that bridge/connection is still weak. There could always be more transfer representation on SPACE staff, especially at El Camino. This year we were fortunate enough to have three members of SPACE staff to be coming from the transfer community, but next year only two have applied.


What is the direction/vision you have for the project in the next decade?

I definitely want more interactions between PTSP, SP and SPACE as a whole. It seems like there is a distinct social and knowledge gap regarding the Bayanihan Project. It feels as if not a lot of general members from PTSP understand what the Bayanihan project really does, and it also feels like the connection between the members of PTSP and SPACE can be strengthened. Both communities have a lot to offer each other.


How was your involvement in PTSP as a traditional student or graduate? If you are a transfer, how was/is your involvement with SPACE and Samahang Pilipino?

Even though I am the BPC, i feel like my involvement with SPACE can definitely be a lot more. I am aware of the members of SPACE that hold and staff position, but I don’t really know all of the volunteer members. I could definitely be more involved especially with getting to know the staff at El Camino.

What is your current understanding of the Bayanihan Project and its history?
-One branch of Bayanihan Project provides academic services to underserved community colleges i.e. El Camino College. It aims to empower people of color specially Pilipinos to access higher education. The program is first envisioned by the academic advisors of SPACE and PTSP back in 2004 to address the low transfer rates. We provide services such as academic peer advising, workshops, and field trips. The PTSP BPC and SPACE APC usually manages this project.
- The second branch is stationed at UCLA where they teach a class to educate UCLA students about community issues and Filipino history.

How have you seen growth in the Bayanihan Project throughout the year?
- I will talk about my year since I don't know how BP is doing this year. Before leaving my position as BPC, I envisioned to add another site. I started researching but the work was too much to do in a year. Hopefully the current BPC and the Advisory Board are still working on this.

What have been some challenges you have faced in your position and your involvement with the Bayanihan Project?
- Mostly, time management because as a liaison between two student organizations you have to participate in meetings between SPACE and PTSP. I usually attend 2-3 meetings in a week for the whole year aside from 2-3 site visits every quarter. The hiring part by the end of the year was agonizing but I survived.

What is your current perspective of the relationship between SPACE and PTSP?
- Its all about the bond you create with SPACE. Luckily, in my year I had the best co-site coordinator where we worked in harmony and had the same vision for the site. The key about maintaining a fruitful partnership is about being there even when they don't need you and asking how you can help. I am hopeful that this partnership will remain the same for the years to come.

What is the direction/vision you have for the project in the next decade?
-My vision for the next decade is to add 2-3 more sites for the Bayanihan Project to serve not only here in LA but also up north. Also, to partner with other UC's to encourage them to start a program same as ours

How was your involvement in PTSP as a traditional student or graduate? If you are a transfer, how was/is your involvement with SPACE and Samahang Pilipino?
- I've been a SPACE student ever since I started community college so basically I've been involved for 5 years. One of the reasons I chose UCLA is because of SPACE. I had the best mentors who guided and helped be succeed. I will be forever grateful for SPACE.

How was your experience creating the MOU?
- It was not painful as I was expecting it to be. We already had a draft to start with thus revising it was the challenging part because I have to consult the PTSP E-Board and the A-board most of the time. It took me the whole year to work on it. I'm glad it was signed that year and became part of the History.


My Findings:
-Burnout is still recurring in PTSP and SP leadership
      ○ A possible way of combating this is by emphasizing the importance of specific
       positions and making sure the structure of bored is strong in it’s integrity.
      ○ Increasing investment for BPC and BIC through stipends and increased
       involvement with SPACE staff, normalizing and fostering relationships.

-PTSP became an independent entity out of necessity to create an inclusive space that
acknowledged Pilipino Transfers
      ○ The MOU was established to address the disconnect of SP and PTSP, and
       promised representation and evaluation of SPACE staff trainings including
       training on transfer knowledge.
      ○ Used to be SPTSP.
      ○ There is a history of negative interactions between the two, but the relationship
       has been improving the past few years.

-PTSP’s BPC and BIC have been hard to fill like other positions for PTSP board
considering it is hard to entice transfers since they would be going into their last year and
investment if not started early is hard to foster later on.

-The current understanding of the history of the Bayanihan Project needs to be greater
than the baseline of who our founders are, the narrative of those founders needs to be
emphasized to continue to stress the “why” of the project.


Implications/Conclusion:
The Bayanihan Project has continued to grow since its original establishment in 2004. The findings of this exploratory research sheds light on issues that are recurring in the project, and as a community, Samahang Pilpino and the Pilpino Transfer Student Partnership must address the disconnect of the SPACE positions with the PTSP positions. The BPC and the BIC have ill-defined responsibilities pertaining to the integration with SPACE staff, which creates a lack of understanding of what the Bayanihan Project is/does. Additionally, the recruiting efforts of SPACE should be more streamlined, focusing on the pipeline of students from Carson High to El Camino College to UCLA. As a result, this pipeline would expose students to SP and PTSP early, which in turn, would solidify the desire to be involved as soon as they arrive to campus. The findings from the MOU suggest the importance of retention outside of UCLA of SPACE students, more specifically El Camino College Students. Addressing burnout is a crucial step to increasing that outside retention, which emphasizes the importance of Samahang Pilpino Education and Retention’s curricula involving transfer trends and training on transfers. SPEAR and SPACE can potentially hold more collaborative events in which staff developments can be utilized. One of JP’s aspirations was to create an all UC Pilpino Retention project, and SPACE continues to grow, it is a definite possibility. The interviews conducted in this research are to examine the current vision and direction of SPACE, SP and PTSP to evaluate the growth of each entity and give perspective on much potential growth there still is.