For immediate release — June 28, 2007
(DALLAS) — Long before Ngoc Quan Dinh was born, his grandparents died in Vietnam because they did not have the medications they needed to cure their illnesses. Dinh, now a student in the pharmacy/biology program at Richland College, plans to finish his education at RLC and then transfer to the University of Texas at Austin’s pharmacy program so that he can fulfill a lifelong dream: to help build a better future for others and to prevent a similar tragedy from happening to anyone else.
As an honors student and community volunteer, Dinh needs financial assistance to reach his educational goals. He is the second recipient of the Dr. Wright Lassiter Jr. BKM Scholarship, which honors the Dallas County Community College District’s chancellor. The scholarship was established in 2006 by BKM Total Office of Texas, a Dallas-based office furnishings company. Lassiter presented Dinh with the $2,500 scholarship award during a special higher education seminar on Thursday, June 28, at BKM’s corporate offices in Dallas.
The scholarship is administered by the DCCCD Foundation and funded by BKM.
Dinh says, “I plan to fulfill my educational goal of making it through the pharmacy program at Richland and at the University of Texas at Austin by remembering how much my mom has suffered and sacrificed her life to give me and my siblings a chance for a better future. I will strive toward my goal for a better future for everyone.”
In order to receive the scholarship, Dinh met the following requirements:
- Completed at least one semester at a DCCCD college and earned a minimum grade point average of 2.5 or better;
- Enrolled for a minimum of 12 credit hours;
- Majored in one of 10 specified fields of study;
- Completed the required scholarship application, including an essay on short- and long-term goals, plus a letter of recommendation.
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Dinh, a pharmacy/biology major, has earned a 3.83 GPA. A resident of Garland, he is a member of the Phi Theta Kappa international honorary for two-year college students, the RLC Student Government Association and Richland Connections Club. He has been named to the National Dean’s List, volunteers as a tutor at the college to help other students overcome their fear of mathematics, and helped the SGA write its new constitution. Dinh also is active in the Vietnamese-American community; has served as a team leader for the annual city of Richardson trash pick-up; and volunteered for the Texas Special Olympics games in Arlington, helping athletes who competed in tennis.
“I plan to be a pharmacist for a company like CVS or Walgreens so that I can distribute medication to my patients and develop relationships in order improve their overall health,” said the RLC student. “I intend to accomplish this goal by interacting with people through community service projects, by becoming a pharmacy technician to get experience and by excelling academically. And I plan to ensure that I will meet my educational goals by remembering all of those people who are even less fortunate than me, my mom (who constantly struggles for my success), and my siblings and friends who have given me so much hope and inspiration to accomplish my goals.”
DCCCD, the largest undergraduate institution of higher education in Texas, serves more than 64,000 credit and 25,000 continuing education students each semester. The district includes seven individually accredited colleges — Brookhaven, Cedar Valley, Eastfield, El Centro, Mountain View, North Lake and Richland — plus the Dallas TeleCollege and several additional locations.
BKM Total Office of Texas provides workplace furniture and related services throughout the Dallas-Fort Worth area. BKM is a certified HUB dealer and Women Owned Business Enterprise; its products, breadth of services and experienced team enable the company to provide creative, comprehensive furniture solutions that work within any budget. BKM’s clients include DCCCD, American Airlines, Southwest Airlines, Bank of America, AT&T, Verizon, the University of Texas at Arlington, UT-Dallas, UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, Southern Methodist University and Baylor University.
For more information about the scholarship, contact Ella Shaw, scholarship coordinator for the DCCCD Foundation, at (214) 860-2149. For details about BKM, contact Andy Vanderveer, director of marketing, at (214) 902-7206.
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Press contact: Ann Hatch
214-860-2478; ahatch@dcccd.edu