MENTORS ATENEO’S BEST-KEPT SECRET
Allan Ko BY JAIME D. DAVID Have you ever seen videos on Facebook of grown men dancing in crop tops inside Ateneo? Maybe you have come across poorly-edited music videos of your batchmates living out their pop star dreams and wondered “Ano trip ng mga ‘to? (What’s the point of this?)” If you’ve watched any of these videos, odds are there is one man responsible for all of this public embarrassment. His name is legendary among a select few, but his wisdom and influence will forever live within them. Allan Ko is one of the most renowned professors in the John Gokongwei School of Management. He currently teaches operations management and strategic human resource management under the new curriculum. Ko juggles his commitment as a part-time professor with his role as the Human Resources Head of Asia for multinational corporation Johnson & Johnson. But the way Ko made a name for himself was through the foundational Leadership and Strategy (LS) course in the old curriculum: LS 100. A visionary Before Allan Ko came into the fold, LS 100 was often taught in a conventional manner—most professors would use textbooks and give out written tests. However, Ko felt there was a more effective way to share his wisdom with students. For him, LS 100 was the kind of subject that had to be learned through experience, reflection, and communicating with others. “I had this huge passion to overhaul [the subject],” he recalls. “We needed to do something so that students [could] walk away from the semester learning and not [only] studying.” As a result, Ko implemented a unique format for his LS 100 classes. Lectures would still take place, but instead of written assessments, students were split into teams
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based on personality types and thrown into competitions by performing a series of quirky tasks, which often lasted for a week or two. More often than not, competition between teams grew in intensity after every task.
“Alumni get attached to the subject because [Ko] really builds relationships with students. Students learn more about themselves through the class,” says Sherwin Uy (BS MGT ‘18), who took Ko’s LS 100 class in 2017.
At different stages of the semester, new dynamics, such as firing members and changing teams, were introduced. “This was done to thrust students into situations they wouldn’t volunteer for,” Ko explains. After each task, students were forced to assess one another, culminating in a reality-show-esque activity called “The Grill.” Controversy, which sometimes escalated to shouting matches, arose during this activity because students were pushed to talk about their feelings and assessments of each other in a face-to-face setting.
His unique curriculum has not only garnered critical acclaim from alumni, but from external committees as well. In 2015 and 2016, the class received special recognition for Excellence and Teaching Delivery in the Wharton QS Reimagine Education Awards—one of the biggest education award programs in the world. Ko was surprised that the class, which can cause controversy and is difficult to scale, resonated with the academic community.
Lasting lessons Despite all the work that goes into each task and the drama that transpires throughout the semester, Ko says the crowning jewel of the course is in the reflections, which he required the students to write after every task. “[The reflections are] where the learning happens. After you take yourself away from all the drama, what happens is a meta,” Ko says. He would always provide a personal response to each of his student’s insights. Ko’s mentorship truly manifests in the engagement of his class’ alumni, who are often involved in the tasks. For instance, Ko gives bonus points to the teams that feature some of his past LS 100 students in their videos, which are often the output of a task. This forces the students to test their networking skills and find alumni from Ko’s previous classes—most of whom are glad to help.
“When we wrote about what the class was about and submitted it to Wharton, they said [the class] was really something ground-breaking,” Ko recounts. However, Ko’s legendary LS 100 class was one of the many that met its end with the introduction of the new curriculum. After holding the class’ last run in its 10th and final year in 2019, Ko shared why LS 100 made a lasting impact on so many students. “It would be easy in other classes to cast other students aside because they may not be talking in class, flunk a quantitative test, or have poor work ethic,” Ko says. “But in LS 100, there is room for everyone. As the tasks develop, someone always has something to offer.”
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