02/25/93
CONTACT: Stanford University News Service (650) 723-2558
STANFORD -- Tommy Lee Woon, associate dean and director of the Third World Center at Brown University, has been named Stanford University's new multicultural educator, effective June 1.
Stanford created the multicultural educator position in 1989 to foster better communication among students and bring together their racially diverse communities through dormitory programs, leadership development sessions and one-on-one advising.
"We think that in Tommy Lee Woon we have found somebody who can help us provide programs and opportunities for students of different backgrounds to get to know each other and share the educational experience," said Dean of Students Michael Jackson, who headed the search committee.
"He brings invaluable experience and a great personality to the job, and people are very eager to start working with him."
Woon, a 42-year old Chinese American from San Mateo, Calif., received his bachelor's degree in psychology from the University of California-Davis in 1974 and a master's in counseling from Cal State Sacramento in 1977.
After college, he served as a student counselor at Cal State Sacramento and Whatcom Community College in Bellingham, Wash., counseled Indochinese refugees in Tacoma, Wash., and handled caseloads for the Employment Opportunities Program in Sacramento.
From there he moved on to Oberlin College in Ohio, where he served as an Asian American counselor/coordinator and later as assistant dean of student support services and director of Asian American and multicultural affairs. He was one of the founding members of the Asian Pacific American Federation of Northeast Ohio.
At Brown University, Woon is responsible for a mandatory freshman orientation program on "Pluralism, Diversity and Community Values," involving 1,400 freshmen and 60 facilitators whom he trains. He also administers Brown's Third World Transition Program, a four-day precollege orientation program for students of color.
During the academic year, Woon advises Brown University's residence-based minority peer counselors and helps to organize annual ethnic history months. Last fall, he organized a new program, called "Allies in Training," to bring together students from diverse backgrounds to examine ways of developing effective alliances with other groups on campus.
Woon succeeds Stanford's first multicultural educator, Greg Ricks, who left the university last summer to become vice president for education and training at Boston's City Year, a non- profit volunteer service program.
He will report to Jackson and to Alice Supton, associate dean and director of the Office of Residential Education.
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