Chan the Man
To people who don’t know him, Academic Scheduler Kenney Chan might sound like what his title implies—an expert coder who sits behind his computer all day, perfecting the nice colored block schedule that we follow mindlessly everyday. But those who know Chan realize his impact on campus is much larger than that. Chan is the ideal model of non sibi, as he devotes his time to immersing himself in the lives of students on campus, striving to help the students in our community.
Chan’s first experiences teaching came as both a ski and motorcycle sidecar riding instructor. He enjoyed working with groups of people and knew he wanted to get involved with teaching. Then, at a job fair in graduate school, Chan met Assistant Principal Ron Kim, who, at the time, was the Assistant Dean of Faculty. Chan asked Kim a question about Exeter’s plan to deal with upcoming technology and Kim replied in what Chan described as a “Harkness style” fashion. Kim turned the question right back at him, and in the process, piqued Chan’s interest in teaching computer science at Exeter.
Nine years later, Chan no longer teaches classes, but still remains constantly involved in the Exeter community—through dorm life, sports on campus and even scheduling he strives to support the people around him as much as possible.
Indeed, when Chan still was still teaching computer science classes at Exeter, one of his top goals was to share his passion. For this reason, he preferred teaching required classes, where many students may have not yet decided if they wanted to continue computer science.
“When I teach computer science, students can tell that I love the subject area and, as a result, feel inspired to find their own passions,” he said. “If you teach a required class, not all the students are there because they are interested in computer science. It gives you the challenge of making the subject interesting and applicable to everyone.”
Chan carries his joy of guiding others into other parts of his life as well. As one of his advisees, upper Abhijay Bhatnagar described Chan’s ability to connect with students. According to Bhatnagar, faculty can forget what it’s like to be a teenager and struggle to think the same way as adolescents. Chan, on the other hand, is great with relating to students.
“He understands everyone in the dorm and knows how to talk to them without patronizing them,” Abhijay said. “He can be helpful without seeming overbearing. He understands how we think and how to talk to us, treating us like growing adults, but still equals.
Indeed, before coming to Exeter, Chan said he used to concentrate on the facts of conversations. As a “techie”, he would try to decipher what’s accurate and inaccurate. Yet at Exeter, he learned the importance of listening to understand people. “You aren’t trying to decipher a code, you are trying to understand a person. And that takes a while,” he said.
Fascinated by students, Chan has always been involved with dorm life on campus. After being an affiliate for Wheelwright for his first three years, and living in Langdell for the next two, Chan finally settled in as dorm head of Cilley Hall. He described his experience living in the dorm as one of his favorite parts of Exeter, especially because of the “family” atmosphere.
As a big supporter of dorm intimacy, Chan tries his best to help foster a cordial atmosphere in the dorm. “Cilley is a place that actually helps each other,” he said. “Here students always seem to go to other students in the dorm for help, creating this really nice space. That’s why I like Cilley.”
Upper Charlie Dubiel has been impressed with Chan’s ability to keep the dorm as a relaxed and open space where students feel comfortable having fun, doing work and talking about their problems.
“Chan is the type of person I would always feel comfortable going to with problems or just to chat,” Dubiel said. “He is the type of faculty who will open their door to you at anytime. You can tell he really cares a lot about everybody.”
Prep Sam Michaels agreed. As the only new student in his advisory group, Michaels found that Chan took extra steps to frequently meet and to make sure he adjusted smoothly to Exeter. This really helped Michaels in his first few days in Exeter and he was happy to have been assigned an advisor who blatantly cared for him.
Michaels also emphasised Chan’s constant energy. According to him, Chan always looks calm and carries a smile on his face. He never sounds tired when he talks, but rather is always very “cheerful” in conversations.
Chan’s easy-going personality is especially impressive considering the large amount of work he takes on as the Academy Scheduler. With over 6,000 different sections of classes to sort, Chan described being the scheduler as a “twelve month” job. However, it is one that he enjoys, as he is attracted to the precision and perfection it requires.
“With scheduling, it has to be a 100 percent correct,” Chan said. “If I put you in the wrong format, and you are in the only student I messed up, that would be over 99 percent correct. But it’s still not good enough. You have to be extremely precise, and if you like precision, it's good to be the scheduler.”
And, in the end, scheduling is also just another way in which Chan can give back to the community. When going to him for scheduling help, upper Evan Xiang was impressed by how quickly he resolved her problem. “Everyone responded to me immediately and the whole issue was solved within hours, which is amazing,” she said. “Chan was really great at helping me out.”
Overall, students across campus consciously expressed their love for Chan and acknowledge his rare capability of connecting with all people. Dubiel praised Chan’s personable attitude and loving character.
“After living three years with him, I think I can safely say I have never met a nicer man,” Dubiel said. “He never seems to create problems, yet he devotes so much time to solving them. You can see one of his main goals in life is to just make the people around him happy. That is why I love and respect him so much.”