By Liam Moore

In 2019, current Dean of Faculty Tung Trinh joined Collegiate School as the new head of the Middle School, where he was quickly welcomed by the Collegiate community and was inspired to, according to him, make the Middle School a “meaningful, thoughtful, but also joyful place.” Over the course of his four years in Middle School, he helped navigate the Middle School through the pandemic, created new experiences, and fostered connections with students, faculty, and staff. His focus is always on how he can improve the Collegiate experience for the students. 

In a recent interview with The Match, Trinh talked about his relatively new role as Dean of Faculty. In 2022, Trinh became the Dean of Faculty for Collegiate, and former Middle School teacher Jeff Dunnington took over as the new head of the Middle School. The Dean of Faculty works with the curricular programs, department chairs, heads, and teams through all three divisions—Lower, Middle, and Upper School—at Collegiate. Trinh works with the faculty to develop and improve all curriculum involved in classrooms—math, English, science, history, language, art, and more—as well as areas outside of the traditional classroom that foster learning, like the Powell Institute for Responsible Citizenship, robotics, Academic Services, and Outdoor Collegiate. He also plans the agendas for all faculty professional development days and the pre- and post-school year meetings in August and June for all teachers. Trinh works with all faculty to ensure that everything around teaching and learning is constantly innovating and improving. Trinh said, “I feel lucky I can work with a lot of different people on campus.” 

When Trinh stepped into his new role as Dean of Faculty, he hoped to continue many of the things he had done as the head of the Middle School, like continuing to try to learn the names of all of the students, even though that meant over 1600 names instead of around 500. Trinh admits that this task is almost impossible, but he said, “It’s okay if I don’t, but I’m going to try.” Trinh believes his goal of knowing the name of every child, what they like, and what they enjoy about school, is important, even if it is a challenge. “Even if you can’t bat 1000, you can try.” 

Photo credit: Tung Trinh.

One of the greatest differences between Trinh’s new position and his previous one is less direct contact with students. He acknowledges it can be easy at times to get too focused on the faculty, because that is who he predominantly works with, but it is important to remind himself that “I’m in a school,” and everything is done for the students. 

To regain some of this connection back with the students, Trinh can be seen visiting classrooms, coaching Upper School spring track, and being an advisor for Team Davis in the Darr-Davis Upper School investment club. He substitutes for classes when he can and visits or helps teachers if they want him to come in to teach a lesson. The more he is able to be a part of the school day, the better he can perform his job. Trinh said, “If I keep ensuring that I have good touch points with teachers and students, that’s the perspective I need to inform me, I think, to do my job as best I can to support all of our teachers.” 

Trinh’s commitment to remaining informed is admirable, not only for the day-to-day experiences of the faculty, but also the students, and this helps him be more effective in his role.

One thing some people might not know about Trinh is that he loves basketball. And although he didn’t make his high school’s team, he was inspired by many NBA players, and one in particular, eight-time All Star Steve Nash. Trinh said, “He’s a two-time MVP, great shooter, great passer, great playmaker.” Trinh remembered an interview where “the interviewer was saying to him, like, why is it that some nights you put 30 points on the board, and then ten? And you’re so inconsistent with your scoring? And [Nash’s] answer was simple, which was, ‘Every night, I just took what the defense gave me. And so, I had to figure out what was my job in setting our position or setting our team in a position to win. And sometimes that meant I had to score, because they were going to force me to, or some days they were going to lock me down, and I had to find my teammates.'”

Trinh went on to say, “What I loved about [Nash’s response] was it was such an easy answer to say why he was successful, which is he had to figure out what was going make their team win. He played whatever role it took. And he would tell you, if I had to sit the bench for 20 minutes because the matchups were terrible, that is what’s going happen. He always thought about his team first and what he needed to do to make them better.”

This lesson is a professional mantra Trinh lives by—doing whatever he has to do within his skill set to make everyone else around him better, and he sees that as one of the most important parts of his role as Dean of Faculty.