Subscribe to our newsletter by emailUCI Engage Awardees
Dr. Thuy Vo Dang, Curator for the Southeast Asian Archive, was among the recipients of the Excellence in Community Engagement Award given by UCI Engage. This award recognizes current UCI staff members or administrators for their leadership and support in advancing civic and community engagement. Dr. Vo Dang has played a central role in mentoring students on outreach and collaboration with community organizations and trained them to archive materials for Special Collections and Archives. She serves on the board of directors for Arts Orange County and the Vietnamese American Arts and Letters Association. Vo Dang co-authored the book, "Vietnamese in Orange County," published in 2015, and she is currently working on "A People's Guide to Orange County," an alternative history and travel guide that seeks to unearth the hidden histories of marginalized groups in the county. Her dedicated community engagement spans across the campus and regional communities.
In a double-win for the UCI Libraries, Sophaline Chuong, a Student Assistant in the Special Collections and Archives department, received the Undergraduate Excellence in Service Award. As a first-generation college student and daughter of Cambodian refugees, Chuong is passionate about serving the Southeast Asian community. She is deeply committed to community engagement as demonstrated through the past projects she has led for the Southeast Asian Student Association, including the annual "SEA Success," a conference for Southeast Asian-American high school students at UCI. Not only does she work on bringing the community to UCI, she has been involved with a program called "SEAL," which stands for Southeast Asian-American Leadership, an afterschool mentoring program for youth based in Garden Grove High School. Chuong, is an advocate, activist and community leader whose passionate commitment to fostering inclusive spaces for underrepresented youth in higher education is a model for how UCI should engage with our local communities.