Lourdes K. Samson (ICA HS 1964) presented her completed and approved doctoral thesis in partial fulfillment of her PhD in Educational Administration at the University of the Philippines to Sister Teresita Canivel, MIC and Sister Dina Ang, MIC. The dissertation is entitled: “Change Management: A Case Study for Change through the Color Print Code”. The brief ceremony took place 11 July 2008 at the ICA Greenhills Campus.

Dr. Lourdes K. Samson used ICA as her subject for the innovative approach to change. She explains that her research examines the basis for resisting change and making it difficult if not impossible to implement. The innovative study uses the tool developed by Caluwé and Vermaak, the color print code. The premise of this approach is to identify change agents in an organization and subject them to a survey using sixty questions. The result of this survey will designate the change agents' perception of change. This understanding then determines the kind of change process to apply to the organization.

The findings of the study then will be most helpful to the school, even if as the thesis points out, ICA has been and continues to be a stable organization. The dissertation incorporates a survey of five groups of change agents in the school, entailing a total of 246 respondents among administrators, faculty, parents, students, and alumnae.

Dr. Samson's conclusion tags ICA as a learning organization. This profile of the school's change agents accepts novelty readily and is partial to experimentation and continuous consultation. The importance of Dr. Samson's thesis lies in its reversal of the usual approach to change management. Rather than trying to change the organization and making it conform to a pre-ordained direction, the color print code approach first tries to understand the organization and how it views change. Only then does the change management determine the process to take. It is the change process then that adapts to the people, not the other way around. In this way, resistance to change is minimized if not eliminated entirely.

Sister Teresita Canivel , MIC accepted the book-bound copy of the dissertation with great pride. She notes that Dr. Samson has undergone many roles in the school, including as alumna, teacher, participant in special projects like the selection of outstanding ICA teachers, and most specially being the writer of the lyrics of the school song. Her involvement with the school continued throughout her academic career as teacher and currently Chair of Humanities and Foreign Languages in Miriam College .

Dr. Samson's two graduate theses for her masteral and doctoral degrees involve her beloved alma mater ICA as both subject and research beneficiary.