Shoreline Community College is pleased to announce that Dr. Pangyen (Ben) Weng has accepted the role of Vice President for Instruction.
Dr. Weng will start on July 1, 2024, and brings twenty years of experience in higher education to the role. “I am thrilled to be part of Dr. Kahn’s administration and to lead Shoreline’s outstanding faculty,” Ben expressed about his new role. “Together, we are committed to expanding Shoreline’s transformative and equitable educational opportunities for students.”
For the past six years Ben has served as the STEM Dean at Minneapolis College in Minnesota. During his tenure, he and his faculty launched innovative curriculum initiatives to tackle the myriad challenges facing higher education. Notably, the Minneapolis Math and Science Pathways, along with the Minneapolis Open-Access IT Degrees, resulted in increased enrollment, narrowed achievement gaps, and greater student interest in STEM courses.
Before assuming his deanship, Dr. Weng spent fourteen years as a mathematics professor at three different four-year universities. At Metropolitan State University in Minnesota, he chaired the mathematics department, pioneered new degree programs, and played a pivotal role in establishing the state’s universal 2+2 transfer agreements of math degrees between all the public universities and two-year colleges. His teaching repertoire spanned the entire spectrum of mathematics, from developmental to advanced levels.
Dr. Weng holds a doctoral degree in mathematics from the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis and a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from National Taiwan University in Taipei. His expertise is in real analysis and differential equations, a field where nothing is taken for granted unless logically proven to be true. While Ben’s training lies in theoretical mathematics, his greatest passion is sharing the joy of math with others. In 2022, he authored “Math Excursions for Liberal Arts,” a textbook tailored for non-STEM students.
Originally from Taiwan, Ben came to the US to pursue advanced studies over 25 years ago. He has a wife and three kids. In his free time, he enjoys cooking Taiwanese beef noodles or Japanese yakisoba, playing his 1993 Yamaha silver flute, and hiking with his family. He looks forward to exploring the scenic trails in the region on his bike or rollerblades.