Dr. Isagani R. Cruz, a physicist, educator and a prize-winning writer is this year’s Commencement Speaker during the MSU-IIT’s 43rd Commencement Exercises at the Gymnasium on April 8, 2013.
Cruz is Professor Emeritus and University Fellow, and a member of the Publications Board of the De La Salle University in Manila. He is President of the Manila Times College, the Governor of the National Book Development Board (NBDB), the Curriculum Adviser of the Steering Committee, K to 12 Task Force, and a member of the Technical Panel on General Education (TPGE), Commission on Higher Education (CHED) and the Technical Advisory Council, Congressional Commission on Science, Technology and Engineering (COMSTE).
Cruz was also a former Undersecretary of the Department of Education. He is one of the eminent keynote speakers of the Iligan National Writers Workshop now on its 20th year.
A playwright, essayist and critic, he is a Hall of Famer of the Don Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature. His other numerous honors and awards include the Chevalier dans l’Ordre National du Mérite (France), South East Asian Writers (SEAWRITE) Award (Thailand), Gawad Pambansang Alagad ni Balagtas for Literary Criticism in English, Gawad Dangal ng Wikang Filipino (Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino), National Research Council of the Philippines Achievement Award in the Humanities, Gintong Aklat Award for Literature, Aliw Award for Best Musical Play, and, most important, he is an Honorary Sultan of Iligan City.
He finished his BS Physics from UP Diliman, his MA in English from Ateneo de Manila University and his Ph.D. in English at the University of Maryland.
He has taught in various schools and universities in the Philippines and in Iran, Taiwan, the UK, the US and in Japan in a span of 44 years.
He has written around 2,000 columns for various publications the most recent columns for The Philippine Star, 125 scholarly articles, has authored or edited 62 books and textbooks and 10 encyclopedia articles including entries in The Oxford Companion to the English Language (Oxford University Press, 1992); Encyclopedia of Post-Colonial Literatures in English (Routledge, 1994; 2nd ed., 2005); Traveller’s Literary Companion to Southeast Asia (In Print Publishing, 1994; Passport Books, 1995); Encyclopedia of the Novel (Fitzroy Dearborn, 1998); The Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century Fiction (Wiley-Blackwell, 2010); The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics (Princeton University Press, 2012; 4th ed.); 19 original stage plays, 4 stage plays in collaboration, including Tribute to Benigno Aquino Jr. (Ninoy Aquino Movement, New York City, 1984); Hidden Wealth Atbp! (1985), 12 stage adaptations or translations, 9 television plays, 5 short stories, 2 screenplays, 1 short film (Einstein Relativity, semifinalist, Pirelli Relativity Challenge 2005) and 40 video scripts on the “Teaching Literature”
After the Commencement Exercises, Cruz will meet with the Institute’s faculty members for a forum on K-12 preparedness at the Mini-theatre on April 10.
For reservations, please contact Professor Lynnie Ann de Ocampo at the English Department, CASS, tel. (063) 2233806.
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