The University of the Philippines Alumni Association (UPAA) has launched the search for nominees for the UPAA Distinguished Alumni Awards 2023. The awards are given to honor UP alumni who have pre-eminently distinguished themselves, based on the concept that “when the prestige of the alumni increases, the prestige of the institution is thereby increased.”
The awards ceremony for 2023 will be held on Saturday, August 19, at 4:30 p.m., at Ang Bahay ng Alumni, UP Diliman Campus, Quezon City.
The UPAA grants awards to UP alumni who have demonstrated exceptional achievements in their chosen fields of endeavor and have given outstanding contributions that bring about significant benefits to society and distinct honor to the University. Recognition is given to those with accomplishments that impact the communities in which they are or have been active, whether on the local, national, or international level.
The categories for nominations are:
- UPAA Most Distinguished Alumna and Alumnus Award – given to an alumnus/alumna who, in addition to qualifying for a UPAA Distinguished Alumni Award, also satisfies the criteria for the Most Distinguished Alumna/Alumnus Award described below;
- UPAA Lifetime Distinguished Achievement Awards – given to senior alumni who have achieved professional distinction and demonstrated meritorious service throughout their career;
- UPAA Distinguished Alumni Awards – conferred on alumni who have demonstrated exceptional achievements and outstanding contributions in their chosen field of endeavor;
- UPAA Distinguished Service Awards – given to individual alumni and alumni chapters or groups who have rendered exceptional service in the pursuit of the goals of the University and the Association;
- UPAA Multigenerational UP Alumni Family Awards – bestowed on families who have produced, as of the end of 2019 and 2020, at least three successive generations of UP alumni.
The 2023 UPAA Awards Committee urges sectors and groups to identify alumni nominees who are everyday heroes or unsung achievers who make a difference through their quiet work in obscure areas of the country or foreign territories.
Nominations for the awards are accepted from any UP alumnus or alumni chapter until Friday, March 31, 2023.
For details, please get in touch with the UPAA Secretariat at Ang Bahay ng Alumni, Magsaysay Ave, UP Diliman, Quezon City, tels. 7910-6390; 7587-8722; or email [email protected].
Conceived in 1933, the UPAA Distinguished Alumni Awards began with the UPAA Gold Medal of Merit and the Diploma of Honor. Until 1938, only two UP alumni were chosen annually to receive the awards. The awards were suspended in 1939, and again in 1941 to 1946, due to World War II. However, in 1947, four UP alumni were posthumously awarded as war heroes.
As the University grew older, more and more UP alumni attained distinction. Thus, in 1957, the UPAA began giving awards in the different service categories, which today are the UPAA Distinguished Alumni Awards. In addition, as the UPAA’s activities multiplied and it began calling on the assistance of some of its members, the UPAA Service Award was created in 1968.
In 2020, the first year of the global COVID-19 pandemic, the UPAA decided to give just one unprecedented collective award, the UPAA Most Distinguished Alumni Award, to all UP Health Frontliners all over the world, living and deceased, who heroically continued to serve in their various lines of work in the face of the hazards of contagion to their lives.
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