2025 Excellence Award Winners
Four Receive National Honors from League for Innovation
Four members of the De Anza College community were honored this week with Excellence Awards from the national League for Innovation in the Community College. The recipients were selected in recognition of their outstanding service to the college and its students:
- Mi Chang, academic services technician in the Curriculum Office
- Mary Clark-Tillman, curriculum coordinator in the Curriculum Office
- Khoa Nguyen, counselor and coordinator for the Transfer Center
- Martin Varela, director of College Fiscal Services
You can read more about each recipient on this webpage. The awards are being formally announced at the League's annual Innovations Conference, held this week in San Antonio, Texas.
Mi Chang
If you’ve ever checked the college catalog or one of nearly 225 “degree sheets” that list detailed requirements for each of the degrees and certificates offered
by De Anza, then you’ve seen Mi Chang’s careful work.
As academic services technician in the Curriculum Office, Chang maintains records on all degree and certificate requirements, and makes sure they are reported correctly to state officials, students and anyone who consults the college website or catalog. She also supports the work of academic divisions and the college Curriculum Committee in developing new degree or certificate programs.
Chang is known for her painstaking attention to detail and focused approach to working with data and software that is the backbone of De Anza’s academic offerings. With her Curriculum Office colleague, Mary Clark-Tillman, Chang helped with implementation of the Banner student information system and the eLumen curriculum management system.
She has worked at the college for 22 years, including eight years as administrative assistant for the Social Sciences and Humanities Division. During that time, Chang has been active with the Classified Senate and Employee of the Month Committee.
Describing herself as a “retired” recreational volleyball player, Chang also enjoys baking, Lego, origami and puzzles. She earned a bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of California, Davis.
Mary Clark-Tillman
You could call Mary Clark-Tillman the “keeper of the database” – more than 1,800 course listings and descriptions that make up the official catalog of De Anza College.
But that doesn't give you the full picture: A De Anza employee for more than 25 years, Clark-Tillman is known for her warm laugh and outgoing nature – in addition to her diligence as coordinator for the Curriculum Office.
In that role, Clark-Tillman works with academic divisions and the college Curriculum Committee to help develop new courses and ensure that all courses are reviewed regularly. She also helps provide accurate course descriptions for the college catalog and website, while meeting state requirements for reporting course outlines to the state Chancellor’s office. With her colleague Mi Chang, Clark-Tillman helped with implementation of the Banner student information system and the eLumen curriculum management system.
Before taking her current position, Clark-Tillman worked as a Counseling secretary and as a scheduling and curriculum technician. She has a bachelor’s degree in Liberal Arts with a concentration in Black Studies from California State University, Long Beach, and a master’s in counselor education from San José State University.
Outside work, Clark-Tillman is a longtime member of Zeta Phi Beta, a historically Black sorority that does service work supporting children, homeless people and community health. She’s currently chief of staff for the sorority’s Pacific region.
Khoa Nguyen
Just weeks after becoming coordinator for De Anza’s Transfer Center in 2022, counselor Khoa Nguyen faced a big logistical challenge: The center was hosting its first on-campus Transfer Day fair after two years of operating mostly online because of COVID-19 restrictions.
Transfer Day is traditionally a major campus event, drawing hundreds of students to meet in person with representatives from dozens of universities. The 2022 event marked a successful return to that tradition, providing numerous opportunities for students to meet and talk with university representatives in person.
Since then, the counselors and staff at the Transfer Center have continued to stage successful events – including two more Transfer Day fairs, the first two in-person Transfer Achievement Celebrations since the pandemic, and a first-ever De Anza visit in fall 2023 by the HBCU Caravan, representing Historically Black Colleges and Universities. (Watch for Nguyen in an upcoming video about De Anza's record of being "Tops in Transfer.")
Nguyen has been a counselor at De Anza since 2017, beginning as coordinator for the Math Performance Success program before moving to the Transfer Center. He’s also been active in campus affairs, serving as chair of the Tenure Review Committee, co-adviser to the Vietnamese Student Association and representing the Asian Pacific American Staff Association on what was then called the Instructional Planning and Budget Team.
Along with a bachelor’s degree in Mathematics from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, Nguyen has a master’s degree in Counseling from Santa Clara University and another master’s in Industrial Organizational Psychology from Walden University.
In his free time, Nguyen enjoys hiking, camping, gardening and baking – and has been working to hone his skills as a cake decorator.
Martin Varela
Martin Varela is De Anza’s fiscal wizard. As director of College Fiscal Services, he oversees the general fund budget as well as personnel and payroll activities. More recently, he has taken on significant additional responsibilities while the position of vice president of Administrative Services at De Anza has been vacant.
But his work goes beyond simple math. Varela has led the conversion of the college’s financial reporting system from paper to digital format. The project included creating a SharePoint portal where users can access a variety of financial information online, from the current year and previous years.
Varela also helped lead the college’s application for federal COVID-19 relief funds, garnering $46 million to support the safety and well-being of students and employees, and to provide direct aid for students who faced new financial hardships during the pandemic. The effort included tracking the funds and meeting all federal reporting requirements.
Before coming to De Anza eight years ago, he held several other positions with the Foothill-De Anza district, including as an accounting manager responsible for debt service and bonds.
Varela has an associate degree in Accounting from Foothill College and a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, with an emphasis in Management, Finance and Accounting, from Menlo College. Outside work, he enjoys playing soccer, traveling and hiking – particularly in mountainous areas.
(Posted on March 11, 2025)