Paul Wong, Dean of the College
Paul
Wong – Biographic Sketch – October 2006
Telephone 619-594-5456; e-mail paul.wong@sdsu.edu
Paul Wong is the dean of the College of Arts and Letters at San Diego State University, where he is also a professor of sociology. His appointment at San Diego State University began on June 30, 2003.
San Diego State University is classified as a doctoral/high research activity/competitive undergraduate admission institution under the current Carnegie criteria. It is among the top one hundred public institutions in the United States in terms of research expenditures (which is in excess of $130 million per year.)
In his current position at San Diego State University, he provides academic and administrative leadership for the College that includes nineteen academic departments, fifteen centers/institutes, a number of research journals, and the SDSU Press. The College produces 35% of the credit hours taken by the 34,000 students of the University. As the largest college in the university, it employs more than 650 full-time and part-time faculty. Among the centers are three that are funded by Title VI of the U.S. Department of Education. Three other centers receive Congressional earmark funding (Border Studies, Homeland Security, and Critical Languages) through the federal appropriation bills. Several centers are funded by private gifts. The College offers B.A., M.A., M.F.A., and Ph.D. degrees. The College has an advancement unit that has raised substantial money for endowed chairs, endowed scholarships, endowed lectureships, and naming of physical facilities. The College has active international programs in more than twenty countries through exchanges, research, and degree offerings. The new College building – a $34 million project – was completed in August 2006. A new construction project will include the renovation and expansion of two buildings for $51 million. As Dean, he is also part of the leadership for overall University fund-raising and he heads the Urban Education fund-raising group. He also directs the Presidential Task Force on Asia which focuses on expanding SDSU programs in Asia.
Paul Wong received the B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of California, Berkeley. He was a visiting post-doctoral fellow in economics at Berkeley in 1979. He has held academic appointments at a number of universities, including the University of California at Berkeley and San Diego, University of Illinois, Arizona State University, and Washington State University. He was a fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford in 1982. He has held administrative appointments as an associate dean at Washington State University, associate provost at Colorado State University, and Dean of Social Sciences at Hong Kong Baptist University. From 1999 to 2003, he served as the dean of the College of Arts, Sciences, and Letters at the University of Michigan, Dearborn, where he also established and directed the Center for Arab American Studies. Concurrently, he served on the core faculty of Asian Pacific Studies in the Program in American Culture at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor where he taught both undergraduate and graduate courses. He was a faculty associate of the Center for Chinese Studies at Ann Arbor.
He has served as a consultant for various organizations such as American College Testing, the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Defense, Centers for Disease Control, and United States Public Health Service. He served on the Arizona Governor's Task Force on Educational Reform in 1991-1992. He was appointed by the Chief Executive of Hong Kong to serve as a member of the University Grants Committee (UGC) of Hong Kong, 2000-2002. The UGC oversees the development and funding for the eight public universities in Hong Kong. He has served on the National Advisory Council of the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
His research has been supported by various funding sources such as the National Science Foundation, National Institute of Mental Health, Rockefeller Foundation, U.S. Sentencing Commission, Spencer Foundation, Ford Foundation, Department of Defense, Department of Education, Department of Housing and Urban Development, Rosenberg Foundation, Department of Health Resources and Services Administration, and Administration on Aging, He has reviewed proposals extensively for federal and state agencies as well as foundations. He has also been a frequent manuscript reviewer for journals and presses.
He has published extensively on comparative racial and ethnic issues, Chinese studies, substance abuse, community and mental health, education, poverty and welfare, community studies, policy analysis, and social science statistics and methodology. His books include: Content Analysis of Documentary and Biographic Materials (1967), China's Higher Leadership in the Socialist Transition (1976), Community Mental Health Training: An Analysis of an Educational Experiment (1982), and Navajos At Risk (1988). His most recent book is Race, Ethnicity, and Nationality in the United States: Toward the Twenty-First Century (Westview Press). His articles have appeared in many journals such as Sociological Perspectives , Sociological Inquiry , Sociological Forum , International Migration , Asian Survey , Journal of Education for Social Work , Social Casework , Social Policy and Administration , Amerasia , Administration and Policy in Mental Health , Contemporary Sociology , and the Journal of Community Practice . He received the most significant biennial contribution to Sociological Perspectives award for 2001-2003. His current research concerning Arab/Chaldean Americans, Asian Pacific Americans, African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Native Americans is supported by grants from the Division on Organ Donation of the Health Services and Resources Administration in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. He is also working on a book on Organ Donation and another book on the Development of Private Universities in China.
