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To her teachers, Faith Yang is a model student, an active class participant who is always prepared with incisive questions. To her mentor at Woodburn Elementary School in Camas, Wash., where she did her student teaching, she is becoming a model teacher as well. Moreover, her dedication to her craft and considerable leadership skills are enhanced by her winning personality. “We can confidently say that Faith’s very presence in a space instantly brightens it,” her nominators said.

Yang grew up in Vancouver but says, “I stand upon the shoulders of my parents and grandparents who immigrated to America from South Korea to provide more educational opportunities.” She has always lived in a three-generation household. She enrolled at 91�ԹϺ����� in 2022 after studying at Clark College and Whatcom Community College.

She chose education as her major because she felt a calling from God to become a teacher and a desire to educate and empower future generations. “School was difficult for me,” Yang said, “but I always found joy at church when working with younger children and was always passionate about helping people succeed in a safe and fun environment, no matter how much work was needed to do so.”

True to her calling, Yang has immersed herself in her studies. She has what one nominator calls “a profound curiosity for learning” and regularly visits her professors to ask critical questions, especially about what she’s learning in the classroom as a student teacher. “Faith is driven to be the absolutely best teacher she can be, which for her means also being an inquisitive, thoughtful and determined student,” a nominator wrote. While working off-campus throughout her demanding program, she has maintained high grades.

Her leadership skills are remarkable as well. As a woman of color in a majority-White program, Yang decided to learn as much as she could about racial microaggressions and put together a presentation to facilitate a conversation among her peers. She is an active leader in her faith community, Vancouver Pillar Church. As a cohort representative within her teacher-education program, she mediates conflicts and acts as a support system for her peers. She is a co-ambassador of the Future Teachers of Color group on campus, putting together programming for students of color who want to be teachers.

In short, her teachers say, Yang is the kind of student who makes classes better and more challenging. She is driven not by recognition for herself but by the needs of her future students.

Brenda, she said this twice—once in an email, and again in her review. I had changed it to “a spiritual calling” but she wants this to give credit.