{"id":5328,"date":"2026-05-04T09:20:36","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T14:20:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uwm.edu\/advance\/?p=5328"},"modified":"2026-05-04T09:20:40","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T14:20:40","slug":"uwm-alum-named-first-hmong-american-college-president-in-the-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uwm.edu\/advance\/uwm-alum-named-first-hmong-american-college-president-in-the-us\/","title":{"rendered":"UWM alum named first Hmong-American college president in the US"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Pakou Yang has been named president of Normandale Community College in Bloomington, Minnesota. She has served as interim president since June 2025. With this appointment, Dr. Yang is the first Hmong American to lead a college or university in the United States. She earned her master&#8217;s degree in communication from UWM in 2003.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"uwm-u-flex uwm-u-flex--wrap uwm-u-flex--left\">\n<a class=\"uwm-c-button uwm-u-mr-20 uwm-u-mb-20\" href=\"https:\/\/www.normandale.edu\/news\/2026\/04\/Pakou%20Yang%20Named%20President%20of%20Normandale%20Community%20College.html\" rel=\"\">Read the Full Story<\/a>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pakou Yang has been named president of Normandale Community College in Bloomington, Minnesota. She has served as interim president since June 2025. With this appointment, Dr. Yang is the first Hmong American to lead a college or university in the &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19712,"featured_media":5329,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","uwm_wg_additional_authors":[]},"categories":[14,11],"tags":[28,27,26],"class_list":["post-5328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","category-stories-of-impact","tag-alumni","tag-home-stories-of-impact","tag-news-stories-small-feature"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.4 (Yoast SEO v27.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>UWM University Advancement<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/uwm.edu\/advance\/uwm-alum-named-first-hmong-american-college-president-in-the-us\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"UWM alum named first Hmong-American college president in the US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Pakou Yang has been named president of Normandale Community College in Bloomington, Minnesota. 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