THE Benguet State University (BSU) has soft-launched its new Kabayan campus in Kamora National High School (KNHS) in Gusaran, Kabayan.
The BSU Kabayan Campus will be housed temporarily in two buildings of the Kamora campus while the BSU constructs its own buildings for the use of the Kabayan Campus.
The Kabayan campus is among three BSU campuses to be established in cooperation with the local Benguet government and the Department of Education (DepEd), with two other campuses planned in Kapangan and Itogon.
86-year-old educator Victor Cosalan, a retired English Supervisor in Benguet and former three-term mayor, was among the pioneers of the new campuses, handling negotiations with BSU’s former president Rogelio Colting and the Department of Budget and Management.
According to Atty. Renante B. Basco, a BSU legal officer, the BSU is currently under a memorandum of agreement (MOA) between BSU and the DepEd Cordillera office, under which the BSU will be borrowing the two-storey H.E Laboratory Building of KNHS, which contains two laboratory and two classroom facilities.
Under usufruct, the BSU can use the building and facilities for up to 50 years as it establishes its own facilities over the next coming years.
Currently, the Kabayan Campus is offering a Bachelor of Science in Tourism course as its first degree program, but will expand to include other courses in the undergraduate level such as teacher education, public administration, agriculture and forestry, nursing, and criminology related degree programs, pending Board of Regents approval and deliberation at the university level.
The campus will be run by the BSU Bokod Campus until such time that proper designations for management can be settled.
With the campus only offering BS Tourism currently, applicants may apply at the KNHS starting in May, or at the nearest BSU Campus’s Office of the Executive Director for those outside the municipality.
