Tanya Velasquez, M.A.
Tanya Velasquez is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences at the University of Washington Tacoma. She is proud of her Chinese and Mexican heritage and her accomplishments as a first generation college graduate. She teaches courses in Sociology and Ethnic, Gender Labor studies with an emphasis on racial theories in social science, critical multiculturalism and feminist theories of intersectionality. In 2009 Tanya initiated a statewide Faculty Learning Community for diversity course instructors through the Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges (SBCTC). As a result, she consultants with community college faculty on curriculum design and assessment. She is also a board member for the SBCTC Cross-Institutional Faculty of Color Mentoring Program. Recently, Tanya developed an emerging scholars program with Jason Lee Middle AVID teacher, Anne Hawkins, which offers 8th graders from low-income and racially diverse backgrounds, co-campus learning experiences with college level curriculum about institutional racism and disrupting the school-to-prison pipeline. Her recent publications include collaboration with Asian American studies faculty Emily Ignacio, Ph.D., Andrew Cho, Ph.D., and Nicholas Hartlep, Ph.D. on the troubling persistence of the model minority myth in education and law enforcement. In 2017 Tanya was awarded Outstanding Faculty by the UW Tacoma student body.
