Federick Ngo

During a wide-ranging, get-to-know-you interview that was published on a university website back in spring 2019, UNLV assistant professor Federick Ngo was asked to reveal his biggest pet peeve.

Most professors would either dodge the question or offer an innocuous response — something like “People who show up late” or “Reckless drivers on the freeway.”

Ngo chose instead to honestly acknowledge a pet peeve that is shared by the vast majority of the populace: “Meetings that do not need to be had. This includes meetings that could have been summarized in an email, meetings whose sole purpose is to schedule other meetings, and meetings for the sake of meetings.” 

Now fast-forward to this past spring. Ngo was about to head to a meeting of actual importance — an all-hands gathering of fellow College of Education faculty — when he was summoned for a one-on-one with an associate dean.

Ngo was confident he wasn’t in any trouble. But he nevertheless was a bit bewildered, since no reason for the impromptu meeting was given. His best guess: The associate dean had an update on a grant proposal that Ngo had submitted.

“But that wasn’t the news,” Ngo says. “In fact, it was mostly small talk. I started to get slightly annoyed and thought, ‘This could have been done via email!’”

Turns out there was an ulterior motive: The associate dean wanted to ensure that Ngo would at a faculty meeting where it would be announced that the UNLV Alumni Association selected Ngo for the 2024 Outstanding Faculty Award.

“I was completely surprised,” Ngo says. “It truly is an honor, because I know these nominations come from the [UNLV] community. It’s also humbling, as it means some people learned about who I am as a scholar and teacher, and they thought what I was doing was important and worth recognizing. That’s an amazing feeling.”

“Amazing” certainly is an appropriate word to describe Ngo’s array of personal and professional accomplishments — particularly his unwavering commitment to improve college access and close diversity, equity, and opportunity gaps in higher education, which is the primary focus of his vast research and scholarship.

Speaking first to the personal achievements: As the son of refugees who escaped genocide in their native Cambodia and ultimately immigated to the United States, Ngo embodies the “from-nothing-to-something” spirit of the American dream. Not only did he attend two of the nation’s most prestigious higher-ed institutions, but he departed both with a total of five degrees: an undergraduate and two graduate degrees from Stanford, and a third graduate degree and doctorate from the University of Southern California (USC). 

Shortly after earning the latter — a Ph.D. in urban education policy — in 2017, Ngo accepted an offer to join UNLV’s faculty as an assistant professor in the Department of Educational Psychology, Leadership, and Higher Education. 

In the ensuing seven years, Ngo has taught a variety of graduate-level courses to UNLV students who aspire to careers as college and university professors and administrators. Although these courses are extremely demanding, it’s clear that most of Ngo’s students appreciate the challenge and come away better for the experience.

We know this because after College of Education students submit their end-of-semester teaching evaluations and those evaluations are reviewed, Ngo consistently ranks among the department’s highest-rated professors. Also, when the department’s graduate and doctoral students need a professor to serve as their thesis advisor or dissertation mentor, many turn to Ngo.

In fact, Ngo received — and accepted — so many of these requests that College of Education Dean Danica Hays recently stepped in and threw him a life raft. At the request of UNLV associate professor Steven Nelson — who chairs the Department of Educational Psychology, Leadership, and Higher Education — Hays placed Ngo on an “advising hold”.

Said Nelson in a letter nominating Ngo for the 2024 Outstanding Faculty Award: “Dr. Ngo’s student-centric approach to mentoring has resulted in demand that he cannot meet — which is itself evidence of his proficiency.”

Still more evidence can be found in the depth and breadth of Ngo’s work outside the classroom.

Ngo studies higher education policies and practices, and how they directly impact students. The two main areas he targets: college access and student success (or a lack thereof), especially at the community college level.

The latter is actually what ignited Ngo’s desire to trade being a high school math teacher — which he was in the early 2000s in Oakland, California — for a career in higher-ed academia.

“While I loved my time teaching, I got frustrated when students who graduated from our high school with big ambitions became jaded after just one or two semesters of college,” he says. “That got me wondering about what was happening in our community colleges and what changes could be made to better support students.

“That was my first of many education research questions, and I am still working on these questions to this day.”

To that end, Ngo has ongoing research projects related to developmental education reform, undocumented students, and community college leadership and practice. 

As for his previous work advocating for a more diverse and inclusive education system, it’s too extensive to list in full. But here is a sampling: He has authored or co-authored 25 peer-reviewed journal articles (with another five currently in review); he has contributed to 21 book chapters, reviews, papers, briefs, and monographs; and he has helped secure nearly two dozen research grants worth a combined $2.4 million (with half that total courtesy of a recently awarded $1.2 million grant to examine higher education policy in Nevada).

All of this (and more) speaks to why Ngo has been recognized with countless honors, including the 2022 Spencer Foundation/National Academy of Education Research Development Award, the 2020 UNLV College of Education Early Career Award, and the 2023 UNLV College of Education Distinguished Research Award.

Throw in the fact that he has volunteered for several UNLV and College of Education committees and panels — and also advised and mentored nearly 30 graduate and doctoral students — and it’s easy to see why Ngo is adding another plaque to his collection: the 2024 UNLV Outstanding Faculty Award.

“Anyone who has encountered Dr. Ngo — professionally or personally — has reported a positive experience and praised him for his human-centric and people-first approach to his work and life,” Nelson said in his award nomination letter supporting Ngo. “Simply put, we may not deserve the type of colleague Dr. Ngo is, but we are eternally grateful for his presence in the department.”

You arrived at UNLV in 2017 after completing your doctorate at USC that same year. What attracted you to the university?

I was actually considering two different faculty positions. Ultimately, I was drawn by the opportunity to study issues in higher education and education policy in such an interesting and important city that often is defined by what tourists believe it to be. 

The reality is there are real people here trying to build lives, families and communities, and education is a critical piece of that effort. I believe in the power of education research to make change, especially here in Las Vegas.

You earned five degrees at two renowned universities. Was this part of some grand plan you mapped out early in life?

Not at all. It just sort of happened as my career progressed and interests developed over time.

After finishing college, I enrolled in a teacher training program where I earned my first master’s degree. After teaching high school for several years in Oakland, I thought I’d try to move into administrative leadership, which was the subject of my second master’s. 

During that program I caught the research bug and saw how education research could be so important for shaping policy and practice. That’s when I decided to pursue my doctorate and become an education researcher.

While doing my Ph.D. training, I took so many economics courses that I was allowed to earn a master’s in economics. That one was purely for efficiency!

When did you realize you wanted to be a teacher?

I had the opportunity to work with some youth programs during my time as an undergraduate student, and that really opened my eyes to injustices and inequities in education. That’s why I decided to pursue teaching. But I also wanted to be properly trained.

One of your research interests is higher education policy, particularly as it relates to college access and student outcomes. Why did this topic appeal to you?

We’ve been selling dreams about college for several decades now, and we need to make good on those promises we are selling. Part of that is examining policies and practices in higher education rather than blaming students for their failures.

Our current systems can definitely be improved in several ways, both big and small.

What’s one example where positive strides have been made on this front?

I’m proud to have been engaged in research on higher education policy and practice for the last 12 years. My work on college remediation, multiple measures, math misalignment, and financial aid for undocumented students has been shared and cited in other research, in policy documents, as well as in research reports. Each of these plays a role in shaping thinking and understanding of social phenomena and policy issues.

I’m excited to have just received a grant from the Institute for Education Sciences to expand this work to the Nevada context. With my co-principal investigator and UNLV colleague, Dr. Stefani Relles, we will be studying the impact and implementation of the Nevada System of Higher Education’s corequisite policy. 

What is your message to the student who has the desire and scholastic acumen to attend college but lacks the financial means or is concerned about racking up student-loan debt?

The net price for higher education after grants and other aid is often a lot less than the sticker price. So my first piece of advice would be this: Don’t let the sticker price deter you.

Second, some reasonable amount of loans might actually be a good life investment, particularly because those with college degrees continue to have an earnings advantage over time. 

It’s true that many students accrue debt. But it’s actually a relatively small percentage of the group of people who hold very large amounts of debt. Unfortunately, their stories are what sometimes drive the conversation and feed hesitation about student loans.

Do I think our current student loan system is perfect? Absolutely not. But I do know there are a lot of policymakers and researchers like myself who are working to craft better policy solutions to ease the burden of paying for college.

What is something one of your college professors did that irked you and led you to say to yourself, “If I become a professor, I’ll never do that to my students”?

I had professors who just lectured and rambled, never stopping to engage students with questions or give students a chance to ask their own. I believe in co-constructing knowledge and learning together, and that happens through questioning whatever material or ideas with which we are engaging.