Cotabato City: Emily Marohombsar, the first woman president of the Mindanao State University (MSU), died on Friday after suffering from a stroke.

Regional Assemblywoman Samira Gutoc-Tomawis of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao said Marohombsar was brought to the Cagayan de Oro City hospital where she died.

Marohombsar was one of the country’s Ten Outstanding Women in the Nation’s Service (TOWNS).

Before becoming president of Mindanao’s biggest university, she was an English professor at MSU and its vice president for academic affairs.

She was also known as Nurhaylah “Emily”Marohombsar or the “lovely Emily of Ganassi”.

Under her watch, Marohom-bsar raised the status of MSU as a global university grounded on multi-culturalism.

She was also the lone woman in the government peace panel that negotiated with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front from August 28, 1998 to October 2003.

“Dr. Emily Marohombsar may be in the next life already but the good and wonderful memories she left behind especially among graduates of MSU are worth to be remembered,” Dr. Radzma Janna-ral-Suhaili, executive director of the Institute for Peace and Development in Mindanao, who is a graduate of MSU-Tawi-Tawi, said.

“We consider her not only as an icon but a role model among Muslima (female Muslim) in the academe.”

Marohombsar was married to the late Abdul Marohombsar, a former Commissioner of the Commission on Elections.