Li Teng, the Director of Student Success at the UW Honor College, has worked with the program since 2020. Though Teng’s title in the college is the Director of Student Success, her role is much more vast than the title encapsulates.
Teng manages a team of student advising, as well as acting as a capstone coordinator. She is also the head of recruiting for the Honors College and the Institute Director and Instructor for the High School Institute (HSI) and the correlated summer camp.
Teng is originally from Shanghai, China and went to college in Beijing to attain her law degree. Teng met the man who would become her husband in law school, and after he made the decision to move to the United States, Teng decided that she would move to the States as well.
She was interested in higher education and pursued a Masters in Higher Education Administration from Vanderbilt University.
She began her career as an Assistant Director for Living and Learning Communities at Indiana University of Pennsylvania.
However, in 2020, her husband took on a job with the College of Engineering here at UW and their family decided to move to Wyoming. Teng had never been to the West, but since arriving, UW and Laramie have stolen her heart.
Upon coming to the university, she began working with the Honors program in the fall of 2020. She has been instrumental in the success of the program as well as the outreach and recruitment of students.
Teng works specifically with advising and providing support that students need, and wants students to see their potential while they are here in the college, and to be connected with the variety of opportunities open to them.
Teng’s primary goal is to advocate for the university, and the Honors program, and to bring more Wyoming kids home.
Teng loves the university, and thinks that UW and Laramie have so much to offer. After working with a private university, and living in Pittsburgh, prior to Laramie, she is of the mind that Laramie is the perfect size to still have a voice, while still having a large variety of opportunities for those who live here.
She admires the faculty to student ratio and believes that we have a top-notch education for an amazing cost. She also admires the growing levels of diversity as well as the scholarship, study abroad, and professor-student research opportunities.
According to Teng, our professors don’t talk at you, they teach you, and the students, as well as individual faculty and staff members, have a voice and the power to make a difference.
Teng is also a staff senator at UW and reports that she knows her voice is heard and confident that she can advocate for students.
Teng loves Laramie and advises students to “Embrace what you have.” Teng is fond of gardening, spending time with her family and finding the little things to enjoy in nature in life. She often takes her seven-year-old daughter, Avery, to Vedawoo to look at small insects, or find rocks and leaves to take home for art projects.
Teng is passionate about the University, but she also admires her family, nature, and all that Laramie offers.
