Born in Sweden, Charles Gustaf Carlson was an engineer who migrated in 1895 to the United States where he became a Protestant missionary, and arrived in the islands sometime in 1901.
Family tradition says Carlson was a passenger of USS Thomas, after whom the Thomasites got their appellation. The army transport, a converted cattle carrier, conveyed 540 teachers. One of the teachers was Austin Craig, who wrote the first biography of Dr. Jose Rizal and several other important books.
Carlson was first assigned to Zamboanga to start an industrial trade school. One of his normal school students, Eugenia Enriquez, became his wife, and their union bore six children. One of their children was Ingeborg Eughenia who married Francisco Aseniero, son of Jose Aseniero who became Zamboanga governor in 1929. One of Carlson’s grandsons is Georgia’s honorary consul Joselito Carlson Aseniero. The Swedish engineer died at age 47 due to an illness.
(Carlson’s name, curiously, does not appear in the 1902 Report of the General Superintendent of Education, the Annual School Reports 1901-1905, and the list of appointees in Manila.)
Carlson, credited as the founder of the grassroots concept of the Philippine system of education, established the Zamboanga Trade School (ZTS) in July 1905. As a state university, it is now officially known as Zamboanga Peninsula Polytechnic State University (ZPPSU).
The couple later moved to Davao where Carlson, using his experience in the setting up of ZTS, established the Davao Trade School (DST), the forerunner of the University of Southeastern Philippines (USeP). Under Republic Act 1905, enacted on June 22, 1957, DST was converted to a regional school of arts and trades offering secondary and college courses.
Under the law, DST became “a regional school of arts and trades of the Zamboanga City Regional School of Arts and Trades type, to be known as the Davao School of Arts and Trades” (DSAT) under the supervision of the Bureau of Public Schools. It was initially allotted P200,000 for its operation and maintenance for the school year 1956-57.
Moreover, the statute authorized the education secretary “to make the necessary negotiations for the transfer without cost of such site, buildings, equipment, and other facilities of the Davao Trade School to the National Government, and to locate the acquire or cause to be located and acquired such additional site for the purpose of this Act which may be public or private lands situated within the Province of Davao.”
Nearly two decades later, under Batas Pambansa Bilang 12, approved on December 15, 1978, DST was reorganized and was named the University of Southern Philippines, the first-ever university in southern Mindanao. Without knowing the appellation was already used by another campus in Cebu, the Davao school has to be renamed to USeP.
Central to the creation of USeP are five functions: (i) provide programs of instruction and professional training in the fields of science and technology; (ii) promote advanced studies, research and extension services, and progressive leadership in science, agriculture, forestry, fisheries, engineering and industrial fields; (iii) develop specialized courses at the graduate level that respond to the needs of the academic community; (iv) provide non-formal education and undertake extension and research programs in food production, nutrition, health and sports development; and (v) offer scholarship and/or part-time jobs to students from poor families.
DSAT and Davao National Regional Agricultural School (DNRAS, formerly Mampising Agricultural School of Mabini, Davao de Oro) were integrated to form USeP, now with five campuses, namely: Davao City (main); Mintal, Davao City; Tagum City; Mampising, Davao de Oro; and Santo Tomas, Davao del Norte, with a total combined land area of roughly 200 hectares
