Paul Yoon is the new VTSU Chief Diversity Officer who recently sat down with the Castleton Spartan for an interview. He is originally from Manhattan, New York and moved to Vermont in 2013. He currently resides in Essex, Vermont with his wife, Jenny, two kids, and a cat and dog. 

Responses have been edited for length and clarity. 

Q. Your most recent position was as senior advisor for Inclusive Excellence at the University of Vermont. What did the responsibilities of this role include and how has it informed your approach to diversity, equity, and inclusion, and social justice?

A. One of the things I was responsible for was the convening and organization of what UVM calls their University Diversity Council, or UDC, and the UDC is a body that comprises all the bigger units on campus, so all of our colleges, all of the nonacademic units that are kind of on the bigger side of things. It’s this body that meets monthly that comes together to execute the university’s Inclusive Excellence action plan…One of the big things I did was to meet with a lot of different members from all across the university community to help them implement those plans and that is, what I think, going to be a big factor in implementing some sort of a change management plan here at VTSU. 

Q. What initially drew you to education and DEISJ work and what drives your passion today?

A. When I was a middle school student, right before I started 8th grade, my biological father left our family, and he did so by leaving a note on the door and disappearing, and that was a really, really challenging, traumatic experience for me. I am so grateful for the teachers that I had at that time, many of whom had known me since I was a kindergarten student, and they rallied around me, they loved me, they supported me, and they literally stepped in at that time as surrogate parents and caregivers. That experience has stuck with me ever since and has led me to this career as an educator. In short, I wanted to be the kind of educator that they were to me, particularly during that very, very challenging time in my life. 

On the other side of things, I was a second-year undergraduate student, and I had the opportunity to take the class titled “The History and Development of Racism in the United States of America,” and that class literally changed the direction of my life and my understanding of U.S. history, systems of oppression, and most importantly, it challenged me to think about how I would contribute and how I would be a part of the solution that I and many others wanted to see.

Q. What’s your go-to comfort food?

A. Unfortunately this is not available here in Vermont. It’s a Korean soft, tofu stew, and it is my favorite comfort food in the world. It’s called Kimchi sundubu-jjigae. But, because we are blessed here in Vermont with such amazing Vietnamese food, a close proxy to that these days for me has been pho (“fuh”), so when I’m not feeling well especially, and I want something that’s warm and is gonna hit that spot, pho has been a really good stand-in. 

Q. What’s your impression of VTSU as you travel the campuses, and how many campuses have you been to? 

A. The first immediate impression is beautiful. Fall is my favorite season, and over the past few weeks, Vermont has been really showing off in a pretty specular kind of way. After this coming Tuesday (11/5), I will have been to all, at least, of the five main campuses, and then I at some point will try to make it to the Killington site and some of the smaller ones as well. 

Q. What’s been your impression of students and teachers? 

A. Great. One of the things I’ve been really, really grateful for over the past week or so is the amount of enthusiasm that students and the faculty and the staff I’ve spoken to have for me being in this position and the support they have for DEISJ. That, for me, has been the most notable thing. 

Q. In your expertise, what does it mean to have strong DEISJ on a campus and broadly, how is that achieved? 

A. (There are) four levels of the different “isms” (Racism, sexism, etc). The four levels are the individual level, like what’s going on inside of oneself. The second level is the interpersonal level, for example, this interaction that we’re having right now. Then there’s the institutional level. In VTSU’s context, you could think of it as the entire university. In this case you could maybe break it down by the individual campuses as well. And then there’s the fourth level, which is the system level. In this context, it would be the Vermont State College System. You need to pay attention to all four of those levels and you also need to make sure that each of those pieces are being addressed in the ways they need to be addressed. 

The piece that is really critical for VTSU is that I am one individual. I am in the process of hiring a second person to be in this office. What is going to be really important is working with teams of people who are committed to this in all corners of the university community. 

Yoon encouraged students to reach out to him at paul.yoon@vermontstate.edu or diversity@vermontstate.edu about any questions, concerns, or ideas pertaining to DEISJ.