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Ted Sun
From Ballotpedia
This page was current at the end of the individual's last campaign covered by Ballotpedia. Please contact us with any updates.
Ted Sun ran for election for an at-large seat of the Dublin City Schools Board of Education in Ohio. He lost in the general election on November 2, 2021.
Sun completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2021. Click here to read the survey answers.
Biography
Ted Sun was born in Shanghai. He earned both a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering and a graudate degree from The Ohio State University in 1995 and 2000, respectively. Sun also earned a Ph.D. from Capella University in 2011. His professional experience includes working in higher education as a professor and consultant for University Builder in Europe and the United States and as president and CEO of Transcontinental University. Sun served as president/chair of the board of directors for Region 8 of ACBSP from 2015 to 2016. He has also been affiliated with the Council for Inclusive Capitalism with the Vatican, the Transcontinental Institution of Higher Education, Southern New Hampshire University, South University, and the Journal of Business Research.[1]
Elections
2021
See also: Dublin City Schools, Ohio, elections (2021)
General election
General election for Dublin City Schools Board of Education At-large (3 seats)
The following candidates ran in the general election for Dublin City Schools Board of Education At-large on November 2, 2021.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | Tiffany deSilva (Nonpartisan) | 19.6 | 6,784 | |
| ✔ |  | Lindsay Gillis (Nonpartisan)  | 16.7 | 5,786 |
| ✔ |  | Diana Rigby (Nonpartisan) | 16.5 | 5,733 |
 | Cheri Striker (Nonpartisan) | 13.9 | 4,813 | |
| Imran Malik (Nonpartisan) | 12.1 | 4,180 | ||
| Rick Weininger (Nonpartisan) | 7.4 | 2,574 | ||
 | Ted Sun (Nonpartisan) | 7.0 | 2,417 | |
 | Lynn B. May (Nonpartisan) | 6.8 | 2,368 | |
| Total votes: 34,655 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
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Endorsements
To view Sun's endorsements in the 2021 election, please click here.
Campaign themes
2021
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Ted Sun completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2021. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Sun's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
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I’m a Dublin graduate (1990) who’s built a global career in education with numerous achievements. With one doctorate in management and another in psychology, I have built two revolutionary institutions of higher education (Transcontinental University in the US and Transcontinental Institute of Higher Education in Europe) with operations in the EU, Africa, Asia, and the US. As a university professor, I have helped hundreds of students to critically examine theories and create new one across the world. As a consultant, I have transformed hundreds of organizations by identifying systems that drive success. As an academic leader, I have contributed to national education reform projects and helped in guiding a foreign business school to be the first in their nation to obtain US business accreditation. As a researcher and author, I have led and published multinational research projects and multiple books. As an education innovator, I have created the first graduate programs for Diversity Equity and Inclusion, while also being the first and only university to join the Council of Inclusive Capitalism with the Vatican. Having worked and lived in Dublin for over 30+ years, I was inducted into the Hall of Fame by the Dublin City School’s Alumni Association.
- Building unity The unity of our community is achieved when we have a common goal and know we have a clear set of shared values. Without it, the best of initiatives and intentions can pull in opposite directions. I will work to establish a truly shared values statement and a strategic plan that can guide all future initiatives. I intend to heal the rift that’s divided our community with many triggered reactions and judgments. I have already acted on this commitment by talking to people on all sides to listen and learn. I commit to being a uniting force for our community who builds systems to that’s inclusive of all.
- Developing the whole student Ample research has illustrated the importance of various intelligences and its relationship to success. Developing the whole child calls for greater focus on how we teach our children, not just what we teach. This includes many life skills that they need to be successful, such as financial literacy and emotional intelligence. Having worked with many high school students looking at the next stage of life, one common theme – they don’t know how unique they are or who they wish to be. What if we focused more on developing a unique identity within the K-12 education system? I have built academic programs that develop the whole student in numerous programs. As a board member, I will guide the district to be more
- Parents, teachers, & and technology together An inclusive education brings parents, teachers, and technology together to develop the whole child. The best education happens when all stakeholders work together. If you believe that it takes a village to raise a child, this hold holds true for education. Having taught in many remote parts of the world with extreme challenges, I have first-hand experience in building an education system that support students with their unique needs, achieving equity for all. I will do the same within our district to invite and engage key stakeholders in the education of our students’ lives.
Our children are the future. Ensuring that they get the best chance to thrive in life requires the board to have a solid foundation in understanding how the education system functions, as well as the financial competence to oversee multi-million-dollar district at work. My passion in children has kept me involved with various educational programs for over 30 years. Knowing how to develop the full individual who can think critically about a multiplicity of perspectives has been the basis of my life’s work. Seeing the challenges in numerous educational institutions as well as best practices from across the world, I’ve created a completely new educational model in graduate business education. I will fuse my 30+ years of intimate knowledge of Dublin with my 20+ years of global education experience to help expand the quality education we need to empower our children to thrive in a global marketplace.
Benjamin Franklin is someone that I’ve always looked up to for the following reasons:
● Franklin articulated a core set of principles at a young age and held himself accountable to those principles for the duration of his life. As an academic leader who’s pioneers research on values and its application in organizations, I have consistently applied my values to everyday decisions and my life. This has led me to build numerous long term
● Franklin was a lifelong learner who had a depth of interdisciplinary knowledge. He inspired me to value being involved in numerous fields of study. As I graduated from OSU with my Mechanical Engineering degree with honors, I wanted more knowledge. I challenged myself to learn software engineering and developed the fault management system of a major telecommunications network. As a supervisor of a network engineering team, I completed my MBA. I realized that there was more to learn. That set me on a path to my first Doctorate in Management and my first book publication. There, my mentor, Dr. Lloyd Williams, guided me to complete my second doctorate in Psychology with a focus on organizational and educational psychology.
● Franklin was an innovator. He inspires me to use my interdisciplinary knowledge to innovate in engineering, business processes and later in education. I’ve invented a revolutionary approach to higher education in business with my own university – Transcontinental University here in Dublin, and Transcontinental Institution of Higher
Education in Europe.
Having written multiple books, authored numerous articles, and led various research and educational projects, the Forbes article is the most recent.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jillgriffin/2021/07/07/to-be-successful-lead-with-inclusion/
My research in finding motivations of students also provides an insight to my political philosophy.
Integrity comes to mind when considering this question. Before I got into this election, I had theorized that all politicians should have an integrity metric. A simple percentage that measure their actions against their promises during various campaign speeches. Since getting into this election, I see various people who only talk the talk, but never walk the talk. Doing that I say builds trust.
The desire to constantly learn is the foundation to being a public servant. Believing that every human being has value, regardless of which side they are on. I have taken the time to talk to people on both sides of this school board election and have learned a great deal about the misinformation that’s fueling the fights. My responsibility as an elected official is also to unite people to work towards the best quality education for our children. I have already done this by earning the support and respect of both sides and getting leaders from both sides to talk to each other for the first time. Finding commonality to unite our community is very much needed, especially when so many people are preaching diversity and inclusion.
• Dedication and passion towards education; having lived the passion in my own education, having used my education and experience to impact numerous students across the world, having designed educational programs to develop the full leader, having built my own institutions of higher education in Europe and the US. It is a career spanning the globe with major achievements.
• Financial competence to lead multi-million dollar budgets and educational institutions
• A desire to listen and learn from everyone enables me to build bridges between people and systems
• The integrity to always walk the talk
• Expertise in diversity, equity, and inclusion with global initiatives like being a leader in the Council of Inclusive Capitalism with the Vatican
A school board member has numerous responsibilities to various stakeholder groups. A school board member hires the superintendent and treasurer, along with holding them responsible for their performance in accordance with the school board’s policies. The school board member sets district policy and engages in strategic planning to ensure the highest quality education. On the financial side, the school board member ensures the fiscal health of the district by establishing and reviewing healthy budgets. From the community’s perspective, a school board member is the link between the public and the school to first listen to the needs of our community and build support for public education. This is where knowledge of educational goals, budgets and policies must exist.
Within the school board, I would like to advance the system of K-12 education so that every child could be developed as a unique individual and graduate with the ability to think critically and systemically. I envision a system that enables children to find themselves with unique identities and ready to advance themselves in the next stage of life. Within the community, I would like to unite the diverse groups to find common ground more often and collaborate for the good of our children’s future.
The first historical event that I remember was arriving in the US as an immigrant at the age of 10, not speaking a single word of English. Living in Brooklyn, NY, kids made fun of my poor pronunciation and my inability to read. My academic performance in all courses that required English was poor. This historical event - my arrival - became my grounding in life.
Even after I moved to Ohio and ultimately entered Dublin High School, I barely made B grades in English, Literature, and Social Studies. While I performed better in Math and Science courses, my weakness in the English language was always restrictive. Reading and writing assignments were torturous. My grades were barely enough to get into Engineering School. At The Ohio State University, I had to work extremely hard to get sufficient grades to get into Mechanical Engineering. While it took the average student 1 hour to read an article, me 2-3 hours. One day, I received an email from the department of Mechanical Engineering informing me that I had been selected as one of the three finalists in Outstanding Senior of the Year. I was in shock. This was my first academic award and the very first time that I was being recognized as a leader in the university community. I had worked three jobs to make sure I completed my degree without any loans while achieving grades in the top 5% in my Mechanical Engineering courses. All that effort was being noticed by the department of Mechanical Engineering at OSU. I was 22 years old at that time. Inspired by this recognition, I published my first article in the Mechanical Exchange, the department's newsletter. For someone who came to the US without a word of English and very limited resources, I had finally arrived at a place at which my parents could be proud of me.
Even after I moved to Ohio and ultimately entered Dublin High School, I barely made B grades in English, Literature, and Social Studies. While I performed better in Math and Science courses, my weakness in the English language was always restrictive. Reading and writing assignments were torturous. My grades were barely enough to get into Engineering School. At The Ohio State University, I had to work extremely hard to get sufficient grades to get into Mechanical Engineering. While it took the average student 1 hour to read an article, me 2-3 hours. One day, I received an email from the department of Mechanical Engineering informing me that I had been selected as one of the three finalists in Outstanding Senior of the Year. I was in shock. This was my first academic award and the very first time that I was being recognized as a leader in the university community. I had worked three jobs to make sure I completed my degree without any loans while achieving grades in the top 5% in my Mechanical Engineering courses. All that effort was being noticed by the department of Mechanical Engineering at OSU. I was 22 years old at that time. Inspired by this recognition, I published my first article in the Mechanical Exchange, the department's newsletter. For someone who came to the US without a word of English and very limited resources, I had finally arrived at a place at which my parents could be proud of me.
My very first job was working at La Scala - the family Italian restaurant that’s been a staple of our community for many decades. I worked there for seven (7) years, starting in my sophomore year at Dublin High School. Started as a busser and worked my way up to an expeditor. The La Scala managers and employees taught me how to work hard, make wise choices, and find time for enjoyment.
The Soul’s Code by James Hillman – this was one of the required readings in my first doctorate program that stuck with me. It taught me a great deal about finding one’s purpose from a spiritual perspective. With it, I have found my passion in education and have engaged it to the fullest. Living in alignment with my purpose, my values, and my beliefs has brought me immense inner peace and innovation to lead the field.
A fun book that spoke to me was Bridges of Madison County – my favorite thought from the book – there are many magical moments in life. If you analyze it too much, the magic is gone. Live in those pockets of perfection and soak up the magic.
A fun book that spoke to me was Bridges of Madison County – my favorite thought from the book – there are many magical moments in life. If you analyze it too much, the magic is gone. Live in those pockets of perfection and soak up the magic.
Professor X – he is the leader of the X-men who’s been able to bring people of extreme diverse backgrounds, abilities, ideologies together to work as a team. That’s what I admire the most about him, and his unwavering belief that peace can be created between opposing forces.
Being on the OSU dance team (Buckeye dance force in 1991-1994) as well as the Ballroom dance team, I’ve had plenty of songs get stuck in my head as I’ve had to practice routines with songs countless times. From my days at the OSU dance team, the C&C music factory - Here We Go Let's Rock & Roll was the tryout song when I first joined the team as the first male. I must have listened to it a hundred times to practice the routine. From my days as a competitive ballroom dancer and performer, the latest one that got stuck in my head was Every Little Thing She Does by the Police - https://youtu.be/IBEryWSJ__Q
Communicating to people what I do for a living has been a struggle for the last decade or so. The traditional academic has a home within a single institution. I have academic engagements in numerous universities that brings me to various parts of the world, not only delivering education programs, but also advancing their educational systems like in Ghana, Nigeria, China, Mongolia, and Thailand. Also being a consultant, I’ve been able to design and implement various systems in real businesses. This enables me to teach from proven practices. Even within my own university, it has been a struggle since the programs are far from the regular business to consumer (B2C) model like most institutions. My university is a Business to business (B2B) model with a consulting arm that delivers revolutionary programs with a developmental side to businesses and governments. This is my struggle as a leading entrepreneur/academic/systems thinker.
A school board member has numerous responsibilities to various stakeholder groups. A school board member hires the superintendent and treasure, along with holding them responsible for their performance in accordance with the school board’s policies. The school board member sets district policy and engages in strategic planning to ensure the highest quality education. On the financial side, the school board member ensures the fiscal health of the district’s finances by establishing and reviewing healthy budgets. From the community’s perspective, a school board member is the link between the public and the school to first listen to the needs of our community and build support for public education. This is where a foundation of knowledge of educational goals, budgets and policies must exist.
As an elected official, the students and their parents, families and community members are my constituents. In order to serve the community, I have engaged various stakeholder groups including the district’s administration, teachers and their union, students’ parents, and residents without students enrolled in DCSI have elicited feedback from young generations to our elderly population, from working professionals to students. As the diversity of our community continues to grow, the endless pursuit of new stakeholder groups will be a focus. Every voice in our community should be heard and be included to build a strong, inclusive community that supports public education.
Supporting the diverse needs of the district calls for a constant gathering of input from all stakeholders and collaborating to synthesize them into solutions. I have engaged numerous educational organizations and businesses around the world in this process. My commitment to our community follows a systemic approach to uniting our community to better educate our youth: Listen, Learn, Act, Measure.
1. Listen: I will always take the time to listen to people’s ideas, especially those with solutions to current challenges. Too often, people get too wrapped up in their ideas and forget that the most brilliant of ideas may be in the community. You have a voice, and I want to hear it!
2. Learn: With the ideas gathered from the listening commitment, I will combine countless ideas from our brilliant community to collaborate with district leadership and the BOE to create solutions to whatever challenges that come our way. I will use the collective wisdom of Dublin to collaborate to build powerful strategies.
3. Act: Taking action within a specific timeline is the best approach to leading, especially when the ideas of the action come from our community. This is where accountability and transparency show people that their voice is heard.
Building relationships with the community of diverse stakeholder groups has been the foundation of my success as a global educator. Running a global university requires taking time to listen to diverse viewpoints and building collective solutions that people can rally behind. Following the practice of listening, learning, acting and measuring, I will act on valuable ideas shared from our community and maintain a focus on students when engaging the community. Balancing the needs of all stakeholders is part of my systemic approach to addressing root issues that will further improve a quality educational system.
As a recognized expert in Diversity, equity, and inclusion, the diversity of our district’s faculty, staff, and administration goes well beyond quota numbers. While many often commit to the diversity of organizational members, we also need to learn to lead with diversity. Any policy on diversity must reflect the systemic nature of diversity. It starts with the diversity of thought that honors the unique human being. It requires equitable development systems for all employees. It also requires leaders to build a culture of inclusion so that every person gets their voices heard. This is not just a simple policy that addresses the surface quota number. It is multiple systems like hiring systems to learning systems that honors diversity, equity and inclusion. See my featured interview with Forbes here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jillgriffin/2021/07/07/to-be-successful-lead-with-inclusion/
Quality education occurs when parents, teachers, administrators and staff all work together as a cohesive team to provide a consistent educational environment for our children. Without it, one environment can create conflict with another (i.e. school environment and home environment). In our current environment, the abundance of misinformation has led to numerous conflicts throughout our community. The consumption and sharing of misinformation present a roadblock to a quality education that fosters critical thinking as one of the main skills for life success. I would address the issue by uniting different stakeholder groups together to work as a collaborative team. I know this is a huge undertaking, but my proven experience working with hugely diverse stakeholders proves that it is possible.
This question is at the foundation of our quality education. But why ask about “good teaching” when we should be striving for profound teaching? From an educational psychology perspective, learning should have a relative permanence of change within our students. Our students should see the world from multiple perspectives; they would have complex thought processes that empower them to find their own truths; they would be able to make decisions that are wise from both the time perspective and multiple stakeholder considerations. From a neuroscience of learning perspective learning requires efficient recall of what’s being taught. Especially with shows like Are you smarter than a 5th grader, many students fail to recall what they had learned in many courses. Profound teaching would result in long term recall of subjects along with ample life skills like confidence, self-awareness, and critical thinking skills. The measurement of this requires a holistic approach to student assessment beyond academic tests. I will support this by sharing my global experiences in education to create the systems needed to support the teamwork that’s needed between the parents, students, teachers, and technology.
Dublin has some of the most advanced curriculums in the state with its numerous programs at the Emerald campus. However, our Portrait of a Learner could be more intentionally unpacked, defined, and scaled across the system to achieve equitable access to the Portrait. ALL students deserve access to Deeper Learning. Students will benefit from apprenticeship models in which they apply knowledge and skills in authentic contexts and learn from experts. In addition to enhancing social-emotional learning within the district, I would also focus more on how the education is delivered so that key skills and individual identity is enhanced. By the time students graduate from Dublin, they should have a solid idea of who they are and what they are passionate about.
The funding game of districts happen with various federal and state requirements as the core sources of funding. It would also include various research grants and special projects. While we work to maintain the maximum funding from federal and state funds, innovative collaboration between various funding organizations both domestically and internationally can be explored. The world of education is well beyond our physical borders with technology. Leveraging numerous years of experience in research, our district can pioneer various innovative approaches in research project. Instead of just being a district that delivers education, we can also be a creator of new knowledge.
Safety for our children includes both physical health and mental health. Rather than being reactive, my principle of safety focuses on a proactive approach that minimizes the need for emergency procedures. It calls for creating an environment that designs the best situations for our children where they are carefully guided to being self sufficient and making safe choices. Especially after a pandemic year where numerous children are suffering from some degree of anxiety and depression; healing strategies will help students have minds available for learning.
With my PhD in psychology, the mental health of our students, faculty and staff is a huge concern. Talking with various medical professionals in our community, the amount of patients being seen for anxiety and depression is at an all time high. Some doctors are seeing 7 to 10 per day, out of the 25-30 patients each day. Nearly 30% of their patients have mental health concerns. The faculty and staff are on the front lines trying to educate under these challenging circumstances. Systemic interventions are highly needed for these groups to mitigate further degradation of mental health in our district. This requires better tools for identification of mental health issues as well as practices to help people heal, both in school and at home.
When used effectively, technology is a key component that enables teachers to support individual student needs. Having been a software engineer and a supervisor of a technology team that managed a growing telecommunications network in the Eastern region of the US, my mastery of technology can allow educators to see the needs of each student, even when a teacher has 100+ students spread out across multiple classes. Technology can also be leveraged to bridge communication between teachers and parents so that they can be a team that enables a consistent learning environment for our children. Too often, people try to force technology into an existing system, rather than co-create technology solutions. I would collaborate to apply technology as a tool that connects various stakeholders.
Don't really have one.
The pandemic times are incredibly challenging, especially for our children. First and foremost, the safety of our children must be the priority. While there are ample medical experts on the topic of physical safety, mental health safety is often neglected. Many children are in tears at home, facing anxiety and depression. That’s unacceptable. They deserve a place to learn, explore, and feel safe. Decisions being made for the safety of our children should attend to both physical and mental health and should be inclusive of parents and our community.
The board of education’s positive relationship with parents is critical. I have two proactive approaches to building meaningful relationships with parents. First, I will be very present in the community and will listen and learn from parents. A strong relationship happens when open dialogue proactively occurs. The second approach will involve leveraging technology to gather parents and other stakeholder groups to identify problems and build innovative solutions. This is a scalable solution that enables every parent to have a voice in identifying and solving the challenges we face as a district.
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See also
2021 Elections
External links
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Candidate Dublin City Schools Board of Education At-large |
Personal |
Footnotes
- ↑ Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on September 10, 2021
