Baguio Central University‘s Dean of the Graduate School and International Relations Officer, Dr. Genevieve B. Kupang, carried BCU’s name onto a national stage on September 4, 2026, delivering a keynote address at the 14th National Student Leadership Assembly and Talent Fair of the Association of Philippine Private School Administrators and Mentors (APPSAM), held at Hotel Henrico in Legarda, Baguio City.
Speaking during the Second Plenary Session of the three-day gathering, Kupang addressed student leaders, mentors, and administrators from fourteen private schools spanning Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. Among them were: 1) Enfant Cheri Study Centre, Inc., Butuan City; 2. General De Jesus College, San Isidro, Nueva Ecija; 3. HSL Braille College, Inc., Taguig City; 4. King Thomas Learning Academy, Inc., Sipocot, Camarines Sur; 5. Makati Hope Christian School, Makati City; 6. Olivarez College, Parañaque City; 7. Philippine Cultural College Caloocan, Caloocan City; 8. Philippine Cultural College Manila, City of Manila; 9. Siena College of Taytay, Taytay, Rizal; 10. Silliman University, Dumaguete City; 11. Southernside Montessori School and Colleges, Inc., Muntinlupa City; 12. Sto. Niño de Novaliches School, Inc., Quezon City; 13. University of Negros Occidental Recoletos (UNO-R), Bacolod City; and 14. University of Perpetual Help System DALTA, Las Piñas City.
Her talk, titled “Turning Setbacks into Comebacks: Building a Growth Mindset,” was introduced by Jane Erish J. Lao of Philippine Cultural College Manila and drew a full house of young delegates gathered in Marigold Hall on the second morning of the congress.
A Message Anchored in the Assembly’s Larger Vision
This year’s assembly carried the theme “Empowering the Youth: Leading with Purpose in a Changing World,” set by APPSAM under the leadership of its President, Dr. Helen S. Losbañes, and Managing Director, Dr. Loureli Carreon Siy. Kupang’s session built directly on that vision, following the previous day’s keynote on empowering youth leadership and preceding the congress’s culminating talk on character and values. Her presentation was framed around four of the UN Sustainable Development Goals featured throughout the assembly’s materials. They were the following: SDG 3: Good Health and Well-Being, SDG 4: Quality Education, SDG 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth, and SDG 10: Reduced Inequalities, situating resilience and personal growth as motivational themes and as foundations for the kind of leadership the SDGs themselves call for.
Kupang invited the young delegates to reconsider the setbacks they encounter: academic disappointments, failed candidacies, and moments of self-doubt, as potential and raw material for growth. Drawing on the language of a growth mindset, she encouraged the students to see struggle as information, and to treat every stumble along their leadership journeys as data that could be studied, learned from, and transformed into strength.
Comebacks as a Way of Seeing
Central to Kupang’s message was the idea that a “comeback” is less a single dramatic event than a daily discipline of reframing. She spoke to the students about the habits that separate those who are derailed by setbacks from those who are, in time, strengthened by them: the willingness to ask what a failure is teaching rather than only what it has cost; the courage to try again in public after having stumbled in public; and the humility to seek mentorship and feedback rather than face difficulty alone.
For leaders, many of whom had just competed in APPSAM’s talent fair events, essay writing, oration, declamation, extemporaneous speaking, and more, the timing of the message was apt. Not every delegate would return home with a trophy from the written and performance competitions that ran alongside the assembly. The talk offered these young people a lens through which competition itself, win or lose, becomes formative: what matters is not simply the outcome of any single contest, but what a young leader chooses to do with the outcome afterward.
A Cordilleran Lens on Resilience
Those familiar with Kupang’s scholarly and cultural grounding will recognize in “Turning Setbacks into Comebacks” a theme consistent with her interest in indigenous knowledge systems and the values they carry about endurance, community, and quiet strength. This is a cross-cultural, values-based lens that Kupang brings to her work in peace education and applied cosmic anthropology alike.
Representing BCU on a National Platform
Kupang’s appearance at APPSAM 2026 adds to a growing list of national and international platforms on which she has represented Baguio Central University this year, reflecting both her role as Dean of the Graduate School and her work building BCU’s International Relations Office (IRO) since 2023. Her invitation to address a congress of this scale, one drawing private school administrators, mentors, and hundreds of student leaders from across the Philippine archipelago, speaks to the reach BCU’s academic leadership now commands beyond Baguio City and the Cordillera.
The talk is a reminder that the growth mindset Kupang champions for teenage delegates is the same disposition she cultivates among doctoral and master’s candidates navigating the long, difficult road of thesis and dissertation work: the reframing of a rejected proposal, a defense that did not go as planned, or a data set that refused to cooperate, as material for eventual scholarly comebacks rather than reasons to quit. The engagement reflects the outward-facing, partnership-building visibility that has defined the BCU IRO’s growth since its founding, placing BCU’s name and values in conversation with a national network of private educational institutions.
The Launching of the World March for Peace for APPSAM Leaders
Looking Ahead
The 14th National Student Leadership Assembly and Talent Fair concluded on September 5, 2026, with closing ceremonies led by APPSAM’s Vice President for Luzon, Dr. Marinel R. Bagasala, and the proclamation of winners across the congress’s written and performance competitions. As the young delegates carried the assembly’s message back to their home schools across Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao, Kupang’s contribution offered them something to carry alongside their competition results and new friendships: a way of understanding their inevitable setbacks not as endings, but as the necessary switchbacks on the way up.
Dr. Genevieve B. Kupang is grateful to Dr. Loureli Siy, APPSAM Managing Director, for the invitation to serve as a resource speaker at the event. She also thanks Dr. Margarita Cecilda B. Rillera, University President, and Dr. Elma D. Donaal, VP for Academics, for their support in allowing her to accept.
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