`New One UP-Dalisay Professorial Chair at the DECL’

By: Bob Boyer

 

“What does that mean?” you ask. I only know because I was an exchange professor at UP (University of the Philippines Diliman) in the Department of English and Comparative Languages (DECL). I am impressed that UP embedded a pun in the formal-sounding and very prestigious award. You will get the pun when you read the wording of the award below.

OK, before I quote the award description, I just want to say that I’m not surprised. When I started to teach a course in U.S. Postcolonial Literature, one of the first books I selected was Sarcophagus and Other Stories by Jose Y. Dalisa, Jr. That was back in 1992, the year that book was published. At the time, I didn’t know the author. In fact it’s only now, in the UP Diliman news release below, that I have discovered what the “Y” stands for. I had the good fortune to correspond with the author and then later meet him in Manila.

We have become good friends and colleagues since. The only irritation I have with Professor “Butch” Dalisay (most widely known as Filipinos usually are by their nicknames), is that his command of the English language surpasses my own. That wouldn’t be so bad except that English is my native language, Butch’s second (or third?). I am not exaggerating, Butch’s language and my irritation that is. Nor am I when I say that I am proud to be Butch’s friend and was so even before he became quite so wellknown.

Just a final note before quoting the citation. Butch is also a distinguished journalist (not mentioned below), and such journalists in the Philippines are highly prized, at the present time, not least of all. When I told my wife, also a friend of Butch and his wife, about this honor, she said something to this effect: “Good, that will keep Dutuerte off his back for speaking up.” Here is UP’s press release of this wonderful award. Kudos to UP and to Butch. Congratulations to the future winners.

“A new professorial chair has been established at the Department of English and Comparative Literature at the University of the Philippines- Diliman in honor of one of the University’s and country’s most accomplished writers.

“At its 1323rd meeting last December 16, the UP Board of Regents approved the creation of the One UP-Jose Yap Dalisay Jr. Professorial Chair in Creative Writing, to be awarded once every three years to a deserving professor (an assistant professor at the minimum) who has distinguished himself or herself in creative writing and its teaching.

“The awardee will receive a grant of PHP 120,000 per year for a threeyear period, and will be selected based on criteria set for One UP professorial chairs and by a committee of the DECL. The chair will be funded by a donation of PHP 4.15 million contributed by a donor based in the United States, who wishes to remain anonymous and to be identified only as “a longtime friend of the Philippines.” The donation was coursed through the Friends of the UP Foundation in America (FUPFA), with the assistance of the Office of the Vice President for Academic Affairs and the UP Foundation.

“Dr. Dalisay is a Professor 12 at the DECL and the Director of the UP Institute of Creative Writing (UPICW). He is an Artist III under the UP Arts Productivity System, twice a Gawad Chanselor Natatanging Guro awardee, and a Concepcion Dadufalza awardee. The author of over 30 books of fiction and nonfiction, he has been a Fulbright, Hawthornden, British Council, Rockefeller, David TK Wong, Civitella Ranieri, and UCSD Pacific Leadership Fellow. He won a TOYM Award for creative writing in 1993, and was named to the CCP Centennial Honors List in 1998 and the Carlos Palanca Hall of Fame in 2000. He has served as chair of the DECL and Vice President for Public Affairs of the UP System.”

OK, I’m back. I just want to note how much I admired the way UP, certainly DECL, nurtured their young professors and groomed them to model what they were teaching their students. Dare I say that’s a couple of “One-UPs.”