2009 Graduation Awards
PANA would like to celebrate staff member Jeffrey Acido and NRJ-API-LGBT participant Yip Lai-Shan for the honors they received at the 2009 commencent.
Jeffrey Acido Receives Koinonia Award
Koinonia is a Greek word that appears frequently in the New Testament and means community, fellowship, and sharing. The PSR Alumni/ae Association gives its Koinonia Award to students at commencement who embrace the school's sense of community, actively participate in campus life, and demonstrate academic excellence. PANA friend and staff member Jeffrey Acido was honored with the award and these words:
"Jeffrey has a strong sense of social justice expressed in his involvement in progressive ministry, primarily based at PANA and in the broader GTU community. Not only does he have a deep passion for his own people in Hawaii and Philippines, he also develops connections with queer, white and minority students. He extends the PSR tradition of boldness beyond the boundary of the campus, highlighting the critical aspect of a community spirit as sharing, ever-reaching-out and justice-seeking.
"Jeffrey facilitated organizing the first Filippino Film Festival at PSR campus last September. While PSR does have Asian students, issues on Asian Amercians and Asian countries are not always heard. Such a move was a breakthrough for the Asian and Asian American student community in making their presence and in showing the diverse faces among the community.
"His participation in the R2W youth leadership program at PANA has shown the younger generation the possibility and hope of a progressive yet Christian faith. He is now facilitating a networking of the minority and non-Christian students across GTU community to address the issue of diversity.
"Jeffrey can chat with almost everyone on a wide range of issues as his interests about human beings and their welfare are his very spirituality. His academic scholarship is an exercise of his intellectual spirituality grounded in genuine concern for peoples. He can discuss things from queer theory to ethnic studies, from spirituality to Paulo Freire. He can write on various topics from the theology of suffering to postcolonial theology. He was a panelist at the 2008 APARRI conference on the topic, "Experienes of Postcolonial Traditioning on Pilgriamge to a Nikkei Concentration Camp," integrating his theological reflection and scholarship with the voices of those who have suffered injustices.
"He plans to continue working with PANA's Represent to Witness (R2W) 2009 Summer Youth Leadership Institute before pursuing teaching and further academic study."
Lai Shan Yip receives Marcella Althaus-Reid Award
PANA friend and NRJ-API-LGBT participant Lai Shan Yip, an MA student in ethics and social theory who received a Certificate of Sexuality and Religion at this year's commencement, was presented with a Marcella Althaus-Reid Award by the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies in Ministry (CLGS) for the best student essay in queering religion and theology. Althaus-Reid was a leading Latin American feminist liberation theologian, best known for her pioneering work in using "queer theory" for Christian theology, and the author of Indecent Theology (2000) and Queer God (2004).