In this episode, Sarah and Caitlyn talk with Dr. Dong Dinh, who is the Director of First at DU, and an alum of both the Higher Education Master and EdD programs at the University of Denver. We talk about serving first-generation students, how first-gen supports must span the whole college experience, and reflecting on those who have helped to support us in our journeys. About our guest: Dr. Dong Dinh graduated from DU with both his MA and EdD in Higher Education. He identifies as a queer Vietnamese American and concentrates his research and expertise in supporting historically underrepresented students with a specialty focus on Asian American and first-generation student populations. He is an avid adventurer and spends much of his time on an outrigger canoe. -- Thanks for listening to this episode of Mile Higher Ed. Mile Higher Ed is produced within the Morgridge College of Education at the University of Denver by Dr. Sarah Hurtado and Caitlyn Potter Glaser. Our theme music is “Summer” by Liborio Conti. Are you interested in a master’s or doctoral degree in higher education? Come join us! If you’re ready to start the conversation use this link to request information. Ready to apply? Complete the admissions application here. Follow our podcast on Instagram at milehigheredpodcast. Follow Morgridge College of Education at MorgridgeatDU. Keep up the good work everyone. See you next time! __ Episode Transcript Sarah Hurtado: Welcome back to Mile Higher Ed, the podcast where we share stories, ideas, and experiences in higher education research and practice, all from the voices of DU higher ed faculty, students, and alumni. I’m one of your hosts, Dr. Sarah Hurtado, Associate Professor in the DU Higher Ed Department, and, as always, I'm here with my co-host: Caitlyn Glaser: Hi, I'm Caitlyn Potter Glaser. I'm a PhD student in higher education here at DU. Sarah: And today, we are so excited to talk with Dr. Dong Dinh, who is the Director of FIRST at DU, and a two-time DU Higher Ed alum graduating both from our master's and EdD programs. So, welcome Dong! Dong Dinh: Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to be here, and I'm excited to join you in this podcast. Sarah: Thanks. We are also very excited to chat with you. Our first question is kind of a standard we ask everyone. Tell us about your journey. What led you here to DU? What inspired you to do the EdD program? And, you know, all that fun stuff! Dong: Yeah, yeah, awesome question. It helps me reflect about who I am, what I stand for, and go back to the beginnings of my childhood, would you say? I've been in higher education for about over 10 years. Wow. I feel a little dated. But a little over 10 years, and I think it started, like, similar to many other students going into higher education. I had a Resident Director, Chen Du, and I was on Hall Council, I was super involved. And he pulled me aside one day and said, “Hey, do you want to do student affairs? I think you'll be great.” At the time, being first-generation, I didn't know what to do, I didn't know what my career looked like, I didn't know what major I wanted to do, and I'm like, anything that someone complimented me about, I'm like, I'm gonna take it, I'm gonna run with it. So, and it helped, you know, that talk helped me identify the different parts of campus that serve students, whether that was the programming office, the Multicultural Center at my undergrad (I went to Western Washington University), really allowed me to thrive by being club officers, work-study, working for different parts of campus and the office, and to see people who look like me, and had similar backgrounds, and seeing tull-time staff and faculty serve them, too. So that really piqued my interest. I think over the couple years afterwards, I really got engaged into this internationalization, study abroad era, where I wanted to be a diplomat and a Foreign Service officer, and you know, I studied abroad twice in my undergraduate career. One in Chile and, went for 2 quarters at the time, 6 months, and then I did an internship with EducationUSA and was put into a place called Estonia in the Baltic Sea, near Finland. And you know, we in that internship really talked about how to get into U.S. higher education's systems from a international lens and advise students, and advise folks whose English was a second language. And although Foreign Service was fun, I realized my heart belonged in higher education, and at the time I applied… I knew I wanted to do student affairs at that point. So, at the time, I reply to various universities, and DU was one of was on my radar for a master's program. I was really attracted to DU's Higher Education Master's program because of their inclusive excellence lens and approach to their teaching methodologies. You know, that was years ago, where Inclusive Excellence was the thing to do, and I think there's still elements in the higher education program where inclusive excellence is touted. Yes, it's called something different, but a social justice lens is still of being taught in the higher education program. And after I was done with my master's, I did conduct for my graduate assistantships for 2 years, and conduct taught me a lot, and realized that what I needed and wanted for myself in higher education, was to become better to support first-generation college students, minoritized, marginalized students, students who wanted to be involved in leadership, and I needed a doctorate to kind of do that work. And so, I applied to the EdD program, because honestly, there was nothing on the table. I applied to many jobs at the time. I think jobs were just really hard to find in 2019. And there was great faculty in the higher education program at DU. And so, it was an easy decision to want to go back to education, to get more education. Sarah: I really love asking this question, even to people that I know. I've known you for many years now, Dong. Because I did not know about your two study abroad stints, that's really cool! Yeah, so I just… I'm like, oh, these are really fun things, but I also really love the hearing about many of our guests have this story of, like, someone who inspired them, or reached out and told them, like, “You would be really great at this,” and like, I have a similar story. Many of our guests have a similar story, and it just feels good thinking about the impact that people like us have had on us. That means we're probably having that impact on other people, which is really amazing. So, thanks for sharing a little bit about that. Dong: Of course, and it takes a couple years to kind of reflect and be like, “You were important in my life, you were important in my life. “And now I can say that after 10 years. Sarah: Yeah, yeah, I love it. Caitlyn: Now, when you have the benefit of hindsight, you can really see how all the dots connect, and those people who influence you that maybe in the moment weren't so obvious, but it becomes clear when you look back. I love that. Your reflection’s leading us to now. You are the Director of First at DU. Can you talk more about this program, as well as the work you do in that role? Dong: Of course. This is an area that I'm really passionate about, because I get to see myself in the work. And I use classroom theories and practices and things I learned from the classroom to apply to my position. So, I've been, as the Director of First at DU for about 3 years now, before I was a program coordinator in the office, and I had a little stint of being a firefighter right after my doctorate program. In this program, First at DU used to be called Access and Transition, where we help support students, right, accessing higher education, and then transitioning them to different parts of their lives as a student and beyond their student journey here at DU. We really concentrate on the undergraduate student experience, just because I would say the main student experience at DU, while we understand we want to expand graduate student experiences, I would say the university does it in pockets, not as a cohesion, er cohesive effort. And, no, things are changing around that, but let's talk about the program. I oversee the First-Generation Student Experience, so what that means is that there are four components to the program: One is, kind of the first-gen family component. Thinking about how do we get first-gen families on board with their first-gen students, and that starts with our orientation programs. We engage with families, we talk them through best practices, or how to contact, and some of the challenges that presents when maybe their students are not contacting them, or they're busy with lives in school, and understanding there is cultural familiarity and knowledge and expectations that happens from the home. So, we have to understand that, too, and when incorporating those into our workshops or lenses. We also look at, as a first-generation kind of experience, we look at programming that really suits them in their success. So, we help them identify what markers of success do you define or identify? Of course, many of them, because they are first-generation college students, their markers of success is graduating from college, getting that diploma. Because as we know, getting a diploma equals many advantages to fiscal responsibility, opportunities, job placement, career placements, as well as setting and knowledge. How to study, how to critically think. There's a lot of things that go into it, but mainly for first-gen students, success looks at graduating from college. We do
