LPU Davao Featured Employee of the Month: Dr. Clarissa D. Apale
“Success will not give you happiness. It is happiness that leads you to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.”
– Dr. Clarissa D. Apale
Dr. Clarissa was raised by a strong-willed woman who is so determined to give her the best education. Even struggling as a single parent, she did not see her mother discouraged in dealing with problems. Dr. Clarissa is indeed very proud of her mother that she was incredibly strong and had surpasses all the hurdles that tend to block the way. It was just so unlucky that her mom was not able to find her prince charming because her attention was focused on raising her. Dr. Clarissa still felt complete even though she only has her mother by her side and always find her mom her best friend.
Dr. Clarissa is married for 23 years and gifted with three beautiful children. Her husband is a car enthusiast that he usually spent most of his time at his shop. He works for car repaint and modification. Her eldest daughter is also an educator. Her second child is in his first-year college as a Civil Engineering student, who loves to play basketball. Her youngest son, a Grade 10 student loves to navigate on online gaming. Their family owns a small farm lot where they spend most of their weekends playing with their six beautiful dogs and maintaining their fishponds with tilapia and hito.
Moving forward she stepped into a community Kindergarten School in Buhangin, Davao City for her ABC foundation. Her Elementary education was spent in Immaculate Conception College which is located at Fr. Selga St., Davao City. In the same institution, she has gained her High School diploma in which the school obtained its university status and became the University of Immaculate Conception in year 1994. During her High School years, she is known to be a theater performer in their class. She enjoyed joining impromptu speaking contests, smart-talking, and theater bout camps. Afterwards she started her college journey at Holy Cross of Davao College where she finished all academic requirements in Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and later moved to Holy Cross College of Calinan, graduated as a Bachelor of Arts in Literature student in 2006, and earned Professional Education units. In that time, she started her teaching profession in the year 2014 and took the Licensure Examination for Teachers and passed. In the same year, she then pursued her graduate studies of Master of Education Major in English Language Teaching at Holy Cross of Davao College. After graduation, she immediately applied for the K12 Scholarship Grant offered by the Commission of Higher Education, and fortunately, she was granted the Doctorate scholarship.
She finished her Doctor of Philosophy in Literature at San Jose Recoletos, Cebu in 2019. And currently, she is now pursuing her second post-graduate degree at Holy Cross of Davao College taking up Doctor of Education major in Educational Management and hopefully she will finish it in a 2-year time.
In 2006, after Dr. Clarissa’s graduation in college she headed her way to Dubai to search for luck. She worked as a Personal Assistant in a publishing company where she stayed for almost 7 years. The company arranged event works with different luxurious brands like Chanel, Bobbi Brown, Versace, Mclaren, Jaguar, and many more. It was a good experienced because of her exposure to creating contents and branding. The calling of her teaching profession started when she went home from Dubai and applied for a teaching job. She landed as a Junior High School English teacher at Holy Cross College of Calinan and later became the Subject Area Coordinator for English. She was awarded as one of the Commendable Mentors for Impromptu Speaking Contest sponsored by Davao City Water District. She was also awarded as one of the Best Reading Implementers by the Scholastics Publishing Company. She has also served the department for almost 5 years and was transferred to the College Department under Bachelor of Arts in Literature as the Program Chair. She has contributed much with the school in terms of establishing new College programs. As Dr. Clarissa was probing for greener pasture she worked as a Consultant for the Senior High School English Department for Saint Peter’s College of Toril. Right after she got the opportunity to work with Lyceum of the Philippines- Davao and was hired as the Program Chair for the Bachelor of Multimedia Arts and currently the Dean of College of Arts and Sciences.
As per Dr. Clarissa, she finally found her home at last, as to describe her employment with LPU. She was overwhelmed on how LPU-Davao takes good care of their employees. The institution sees to it to give their employees the best career development to answer the needs of the stakeholders and to give quality education.
Finally, she always reminds her to students to reach for their stars. Never be discouraged of the challenges and struggles that come along the way. These are just spices in life that pushed you to move forward and fight. Having the spirit of determination, you can make your dreams into reality. Project and visualize how beautiful life is, never stop dreaming for someday you will be the best star that shines. Make yourself the best character in your own story never allow intruding characters to disrupt the storyline you have created for your life story.