Heritage for the Future: Harnessing Stories of a State University Historical Sites for Achieving Promotion and Development

This research delves into the descriptions and stories and the extent of the characteristics of the sites of Central Philippines State University-Main Campus, Philippines, addressing the defacing and vanishing structures within the school. There are 11 informants involved in the study through snowball sampling. Using a mixed method, this study presented qualitative data for the narratives of the descriptions and stories of sites through a researcher-made questionnaire and quantitative data for the extent of characteristics of the sites through an adapted questionnaire from the Tourism Guidebook for Local Government Units with the parameters as to uniqueness and appeal, educational/economic/historical/cultural value, accessibility, availability of basic utilities, and availability of onsite facilities, using the Likert Scale measurement criteria of 1-not evident, 2-slightly evident, 3-fairly evident, 4-quite evident, and 5-very evident. The findings revealed fourteen (14) well-known sites situated at the perimeter area of Central Philippines State University. The descriptions and stories of the historical sites vary according to their structure and the narration of the informants. As gleaned from the findings, the strength of the sites was in the educational, economic, historical, and cultural values, which were marked as quite evident. The uniqueness and appeal were quite evident. The accessibility of the historical sites and the availability of basic utilities were slightly evident. The onsite facilities are not evident. The historical sites, in general, possess fairly evident characteristics. Hence, there is a need to create a site development framework for their promotion and development.