Opening Convocation ceremony celebrates top community leader
Vermont Business Magazine On Thursday, August 25th, Champlain College awarded its 2022 Distinguished Citizen Award to Weiwei Wang, co-founder, and director of operations and development of the Vermont Professionals of Color (PoC) Network.
In its 61st year, the Distinguished Citizen Award recognizes and celebrates leaders whose personal and professional achievements exemplify Champlain’s commitment to developing engaged citizens who have made a meaningful impact on their communities.
“Champlain College is thrilled to name Weiwei Wang as this year’s Distinguished Citizen. As co-founder of Vermont Professionals of Color Network, Weiwei is committed to building a welcoming, supportive and just community in Vermont,” Alex Hernandez, Champlain College president, said. “Weiwei is a social entrepreneur whose efforts to lift people and communities is creating positive change across our state.”
Wang currently serves as the co-founder and director of Operations and Development of the Vermont Professionals of Color (PoC) Network, an organization launched in 2019 to advance the prosperity of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) in Vermont. The VT PoC Network is focused on driving a new era of professional mobility, promoting entrepreneurial ventures, and nurturing a powerful network. Wang also serves on the Stiller School of Business advisory board.
The honor was bestowed during Champlain’s Convocation ceremony, welcoming new students to campus. During the event, Wang shared her perspective as a Chinese-American living in Vermont and how she sought and built a network for herself and others in the BIPOC community. Last year’s Distinguished Citizen recipient was Jane Lindholm, former award-winning voice of Vermont Public Radio.
About Champlain College: Founded in 1878, Champlain College is a small, not-for-profit, private college in Burlington, Vermont, with additional campuses in Montreal, Canada, and Dublin, Ireland. Champlain offers a traditional undergraduate experience from its beautiful campus overlooking Lake Champlain and over 90 residential undergraduate and online undergraduate and graduate degree programs and certificates. Champlain's distinctive career-driven approach to higher education embodies the notion that true learning occurs when information and experience come together to create knowledge. Champlain College is included in the Princeton Review's The Best 384 Colleges: 2019 Edition. For the fourth year in a row, Champlain was named a "Most Innovative School" in the North by U.S. News & World Report's 2019 "America's Best Colleges,” and a “Best Value School” and is ranked in the top 100 “Regional Universities of the North” and in the top 25 for “Best Undergraduate Teaching.” Champlain is also featured in the Fiske Guide to Colleges for 2019 as one of the "best and most interesting schools" in the United States, Canada and Great Britain and is a 2019 College of Distinction. For more information, visit champlain.edu.
Burlington, VT (August 26, 2022) — Champlain College
