Tuấn Đặng joined YVC’s leadership as the new dean of arts and sciences in March. Đặng brings a breadth of experience to campus, having held a variety of academic leadership roles at multiple community and technical colleges in Washington state.

Most recently, he served as Lake Washington Institute of Technology’s chief academic officer with responsibilities for all academic and technical programs, services, the library and faculty. Previously, he held a variety of academic leadership positions at Bellevue College and Lower Columbia College, including roles leading the arts and humanities division, managing programs for high school students, and leadership of adult basic education and English language acquisition programs. Before his career in higher education, Đặng spent several years teaching English and other subjects across all grade levels at schools in Thailand and founded a private school in that country.

Đặng earned his Doctor of Education in community college leadership and a master’s degree in adult education at Oregon State University, a master’s degree in bilingual education from Rangsit University, and bachelor’s degrees in zoology and biology from the University of Washington.

YVC Voice sat down with Đặng to talk about his plans for leadership of the division. Some comments have been edited for length and clarity.

What made you interested in working at Yakima Valley College?
I’ve been a long-time Western Washingtonian who always thought of this area as the “other Washington.” Working in our State Board for Community and Technical Colleges (SBCTC) system, I had the opportunity to see many of our different colleges and the communities they reside in. Yakima is an area of Washington with its own history, culture and relationships.   

The other thing that I could see right away is that Yakima residents really love Yakima. There is a recognition that things could be improved but also great love by all for this area. This intrigued me.

This unfamiliarity with the landscape and the obvious appreciation by everyone in it piqued my curiosity to the point where I wanted to try being a Yakima resident too.  

With Yakima Valley College, I think I got lucky. It was just what I was looking for — a position where I could be surrounded by really smart people doing what they could for the community around them.

What are your short-term and long-term goals for the Arts and Sciences Division?
My short-term goal is easy, get to know the Arts and Sciences Division. To work together, it really is important to get to know one another and I’d like to spend my time sitting down with each department to hear what they hope for it. To me, this is not time wasted.

My long-term goal is to get the college and community to know them. I understand that YVC has been here for a long time and everybody knows about the college, but sometimes familiarity and repetition can norm or mask things to the point where we no longer see them or look for them. I’d like to work in a division that basks in the vibrancy of who they are and takes every opportunity to extend themselves into our community, continually inviting families in and showing students that their education is accessible, that they can do it too.

I’d like to work in a college that is excited about being a college and think the arts and sciences can be one of the best parts of that. As part of our evaluation and accreditation processes, as well as our choice of initiatives and focus, we can continually renew what we mean to our local community as it changes and grows.

What are the biggest challenges you see facing the college currently, how do you plan to help address these?
Connectivity. It’s not always the most pressing problem but I think it is an ever-present one that can always be improved. I think that connectivity is a pre-paved pathway for enrollment and the more we improve this, the more we build the ability or flexibility to mitigate our other problems. 

Budget, staffing, systemic change; these are all also very real, very important concerns but isolation only stresses these and makes their impact worse.  

In staying connected, we learn faster and we adapt faster. With the other colleges in our system there is so much we can learn and adapt to if we partner with them or private schools and school districts, all dealing with similar problems. Staying connected and working with our stakeholders and their expectations will lead to solutions we can all live with.

How will you promote communication and collaboration between faculty and staff within the division/college?
I’d like to hold meetings and events where knowing each other is the intention. I am fond of having “special guest stars” in meetings wherein we can introduce ourselves, our work and our students to one another. 

We are all working in our own areas and no one intentionally tries to not know about other areas of our college but without that specific focus, we may never know each other beyond where we work. Presentations about our different areas teach our college community what we each do and, more importantly, how they can relate. From this shift in perspective, we can then see how collaboration can begin or be strengthened.

Structured meetings around work initiatives are great for learning about other areas as well, but there’s something about learning something new. Learning about totally different areas that we might not normally work with presents new things, new possibilities and new ideas. Learning who else is on the campus, what they spend their time on, who they work for and what they want our students to learn is a way to bring those new things, possibilities and ideas to reality.

How do you plan to engage faculty?
Walkabout. I like getting out of the office. I want to get to know faculty as the diverse community of experts that they are. I’m excited to find out what it is that faculty want to do and look for ways to align that to the college’s processes and supports.  

I also want to get to know the faculty themselves and all the different life experiences they have. I’m excited to find out how faculty decided on their area of expertise and why they chose to live in this community. 

What’s your vision supporting enrollment growth on campus?
Even with several years in the SBCTC system, I continue to learn. To me, that same learning must bridge a much larger gap for students and it’s up to us to come up with ways in which students and potential students really understand the pathways available to them. An open door isn’t just meaningless but maybe even dangerous to those who don’t understand the pathway that it leads to.  

Getting onto a path, staying on a path and completing a goal, that’s more than just the promise of an income, that’s the power of the student belief that “Yes, I can do that too.” That belief can only be supported by the active, living, talking examples of who our students want to become. Engineers, teachers, nurses, musicians and more, arts and sciences gets to hold a piece of who our students are and want to become.

I think as we refine our pathways and make them clearer, we can take what we’ve done and reach out into our community so that they can be just as excited as we are about the opportunities at and through YVC. The more we reach out, the more we reach our role in providing access to all, ensuring that the most diverse of us can not only reach us but is invited to join us.

Are there any major initiatives you’d like to introduce on campus in the next year?
I’d like to focus on supporting dual enrollment. Introducing students to our campus early increases familiarity, a sense of belonging and reduces fear. Having worked with dual enrollment students, I’d like to work on the “next steps” of their experience by smoothing connections between the entry process into education and the education experience itself. 

In the same vein, I’d like to support our College and Career Readiness students and their entry into college-level coursework as a pathway for further learning. With teaching partnerships like Integrated Basic Education and Skills Training (I-BEST) or new learning communities, I’d like to introduce models and methods of teaching that may benefit more students than just the population these models were designed for. 

Articulations and pathways make choices clear for our students and their families and schools.  Involvement and outreach make those pathways engaging. Pedagogy and self-assessment lead to the best ways which support students’ completion of their path.

I’d like to work with arts and sciences in supporting the practices that make us the best college in the state at “being everything to everyone.”

Anything else you’d like to share?
I love anything nerdy — comics, games (video and board), movies, books, technology and gadgets — I love all of it. 

I used to be outdoorsy, but it’s been a long time since I’ve gotten out and about. This is one of the things that made moving out here exciting, the chance to get out again. If you know of good places to take a carload of teenagers, young adults and a dog, talk to me.

Story by Stefanie Menard, AA-DTA ’05, communications consultant. Photo by Matt Barton, graphic designer/multimedia content producer.