Reporting by Dustin Wunderlich, Yakima Valley College
Ambassador David H. Shinn has traveled the world following assignments in Lebanon, Kenya, Tanzania, Mauritania, Cameroon, Sudan, Burkina Faso, and Ethiopia.
Shinn received three State Department Superior Honor awards for his work, which included responding to famines, enhancing food security, peacekeeping efforts and initiating a public campaign against HIV/AIDS.
In 2001, Shinn joined the faculty of GWU’s Elliott School of International Affairs, where he continues to teach courses on African affairs and China-Africa relations.
Before starting his 37-year career in U.S. Foreign Service, David H. Shinn earned his bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees at George Washington University.
But, before even that, Shinn was a community college student and a Phi Theta Kappa member at Yakima Valley College.
“Phi Theta Kappa offers an enormous amount of guidance for all categories of community college students and a range of scholarships for those who are continuing with their education. It has courses on employment preparation, guidance on transferring to a four-year college, leadership development and improving research skills,” Shinn said.
Shinn joined PTK in his sophomore year at YVC. Years later he became one of Phi Theta Kappa’s Most Distinguished Alumni in 1995. In 2007, he joined the Phi Theta Kappa Board of Trustees, a position he held for more than a decade.
Shinn found his membership and his board position meaningful and came to learn much about community colleges and how they can help students complete their first two years of schools at a lower cost than immediately enrolling in a transfer institution.
“I was surprised by the number of community college students who were the first members of their family to attend college. I gained an appreciation for the different emphases that community colleges place on education,” Shinn said. “Some have an academic focus, some vocational and some adult education. Others do all three. But they all offer a two-year degree and a low-cost option to complete the first two years of a four-year degree, which was my reason for attending YVC.”
Read the full piece, From Yakima to the Foreign Service, at Yakima Valley College Voice Magazine.
