Asst. Prof. Josephine Aguilar-Placido or Ma’am Peppin, as she is fondly called by her colleagues and students, finished her Bachelor’s and Masteral degrees major in Sociology at the University of Santo Tomas. She is currently finishing her Doctoral degree in Development Studies at the University of Santo Tomas Graduate School. It was the year 1981 when her journey of teaching started. She received an unexpected call from Elvira Punzalan asking her if she wanted to teach in the University and without any hesitations she resigned from her job to pursue her lifelong dream of teaching, as she was always inspired and motivated by her mother who was also a teacher and by her professors who she did not forget for being strict, a terror, outgoing, and had effective ways of teaching. She started by teaching 9 units at first until she reached 21 units as her regular and was tenured in (year). Her management skills earned her the appointment of Faculty Secretary of the Faculty of Arts and Letters in the year 1986 and 1997. Ma’am Peppin had to juggle between managing student concerns and teaching major and general education subjects, which required a lot of time and energy to fulfill.
In the year 1995, she was appointed as the Dean of the Honorary core of Lady Sponsors in the Department of Military Science and Tactics otherwise known as ROTC and she became a Reserved soldier of the Philippine Army in the year 1999. As the years passed by, she was given an offer to write for Manila Bulletin and had her own column entitled “Peppin’s Desk” where people from international to local places could send letters to share their problems. The column ran for four years. Aside from being all of that, from the year 1988 to this present year, she consistently appears on television or aired on radio as a resident sociologist for television networks and shows. With her passion for the job and the practice of sociology, she was appointed as the Sociology Department Chair in the year 2014. She was also appointed by Father Rector Dagohoy himself to be part of the Faculty Council for Arts and Letters in the year 2014, which she is still taking part of. Her years of teaching and practice paved way for her to be able to publish her first book entitled “Sosyolohiya Antropolohiya”, that is being used by students in other colleges in the University for their Introduction to Sociology subject.
As people have perceived her as someone who is strict and serious, they are surprised to discover she is outgoing, optimistic, and helpful as a person. A wife who is like a best friend to her husband, a colleague who values betterment for everyone around her, and a professor who sees her students as her trophies when she sees them soar high in the field of Sociology or in the path they have chosen to take. Josephine Aguilar-Placido is someone who has stringed Sociology in her life. That is why she flourished into the person who we see and interact with everyday. Her journey will go on and what she has shared to everyone will never be forgotten and put to waste.
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