Eduardo Lage-Otero named inaugural Vice-Rector
As the inaugural Vice-Rector of Yale-NUS, Dr Eduardo Lage-Otero is eager to build a comprehensive framework to shape the residential experience for all students. It involves, he explains, the creation of a series of traditions or milestones throughout the year, which students can look forward to as a way to mark their progress and take a break from their daily routines. Dr Lage-Otero also intends to develop mentoring initiatives among the student body where all students can teach or share with others and hone their peer mentoring skills. “Fostering a climate of tolerance and openness in the residence hall is key to encouraging students’ participation and engagement,” he shared.
As Vice-Rector, Dr Lage-Otero will work closely with the Dean’s Fellows to ensure Yale-NUS students have a successful and rich social and learning experience living on campus and beyond. Together with the Dean of Students and the Rector, he will oversee the development of activities and events in the residential college to expand students’ intellectual and personal growth beyond the traditional confines of the classroom. It is his hope to foster a rich cultural and social life in the residential college so that creativity, curiosity, and community will become a central part of the College’s DNA.
“I hope to devote significant attention to counseling students and implementing a rich program of college functions and extracurricular activities to strengthen the sense of community and collegiality among our students. We are very lucky to have an outstanding team of Dean’s Fellows who come to Yale-NUS with lots of experience and a wealth of skills that I will certainly rely on to ensure we make our students’ residential experience among the best in the world,” Dr Lage-Otero shared.
Dr Lage-Otero cites curiosity as a significant factor in leading him to join Yale-NUS, and is very excited to inspire the same value in students.
“Being part of a new initiative is always exciting and in the case of Yale-NUS the opportunity was too good to pass. There are many things that attracted me to this position: the chance to work closely with very talented students and faculty in a carefully designed liberal arts college; the spirit of collaboration and interdisciplinarity as exemplified in the development of an innovative curriculum; and the interactions with senior administrators who sold me on the transcendental importance of this enterprise for liberal arts education in South East Asia and the Pacific region, to name a few. It is clear to me that because of the thought and resources that have already been channeled into this project, students’ educational experience will be greater than the sum of its parts. As Vice-Rector, I’m excited to help make Yale-NUS a success,” he said.
Dr Lage-Otero is proficient in Galician, English, Spanish and Portuguese and can also read French and Italian. He has taught Hispanic Studies, Spanish travel narratives, Video Games for social change, Educational Statistics, and Communicating with Computer-Based Interactive Technology. His teaching and research experience are closely intertwined in the areas of language, learning with technology and the social impact of video games.
As an undergraduate, Dr Lage-Otero studied English and American literatures in Santiago de Compostela, Spain. He received a scholarship to do graduate work in Spanish and Latin American literatures at Washington University in Saint Louis, and upon completing his Masters, directed a language centre at that institution for several years, working closely with students and language instructors. He then moved to New York City to do doctoral work at New York University (NYU) on educational technology, focusing on the intersection between cognitive science and second language acquisition. At NYU, he served as a graduate resident assistant in Greenwich Village for four years. Prior to joining Yale-NUS College, Dr Lage-Otero was the Language Center Director at Trinity College, an elite liberal arts college, directing their language center and teaching language courses and first-year seminars.
