2 Pinays shine in Big Apple

WASHINGTON – Two Filipino women have been honored in New York for their outstanding role as teachers.

Sheila Coronel was an investigative reporter in Manila before going to New York City in 2006 to head the Toni Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism at Columbia University.

Coronel received the university’s Presidential Award for Excellence in Teaching in May although she admits she didn’t have much teaching experience.

Susan Dalmas, on the other hand, made a career of helping people learn to speak and read English, teaching the language to Indochina refugees in Bataan in the 1980s before immigrating to the United States and becoming director of adult literacy programs at Queens Library in New York.

Dalmas was honored by New York City as an outstanding civil servant and received the Sloan Public Award and a cash prize of $7,500.

Coronel was also honored for being a significant influence on the intellectual development of students. She was also awarded for her teaching excellence at both the undergraduate and graduate level.

She was included among the six honorees picked out from the 250,000 eligible New York City public workers.

The Sloan Public Service Awards, widely regarded as the Nobel Prizes of NYC government, honors outstanding civil servants whose work performance and commitment to the public transcend not merely the ordinary but the extraordinary– day after day and year after year.

Dalmas, a native of Baguio City, said it was a big honor for her to represent the Philippines at the awards ceremony in March presided over by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

“It was a thrilling and humbling moment for me,” she said.

“Susan has worked tirelessly to develop new and innovative programs for adult learners that are recognized and imitated by libraries throughout the US,” said Diana Chapin, executive director of the Queens Library Foundation.

Dalmas joined the Queens Library in 1989.

“This woman is the energizer bunny,” remarked former Queens Library chief operating officer Maureen O’Connor.

Coronel, in a comment quoted in the Columbia University website said: “I came to the Journalism School from Manila in the fall of 2006… I didn’t have much teaching experience nor had I lived in the US before.

“But I was privileged to have fabulous students and a warm, supportive community at the Journalism School… I’m thrilled – and grateful – that the university has recognized the work we’ve done,” she said.

Coronel co-founded the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism in 1989, seven years after she began her career as a reporter. -Jose Katigbak, The STAR Washington Bureau (The Philippine Star)