The first Tibetan origin Commissioner at the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) on May 14 this year. The commissioner is the first ever Tibetan American to hold the post and he has served for two terms since 2016. The Commission has nine commissioners appointed and their terms will be expiring this May.
Dr. Tenzin Dorjee is the first ever Tibetan American to be appointed a Commissioner of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom and he completes his term on May 14, 2020. Dr. Dorjee was appointed to the Commission on December 8, 2016, by then House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). He was reappointed by her for a second term on May 10, 2018.
Dr. Dorjee served his two terms in office meaningfully, endearing himself to his colleagues who admired his knowledge on religious matters and his personal warm-heartedness. On June 12, 2018, he was unanimously elected Chair of the Commission for a one-year term, which he served with distinction, as per the explanation by International Campaign for Tibet that worked closely with him.
Tenzin Dorjee (Ph.D., University of California, Santa Barbara, UCSB) is Associate Professor at the Department of Human Communication Studies, California State University, Fullerton (CSUF). His primary teaching and research interests are intergroup, intercultural, and intergenerational communication, identity issues, peacebuilding, and conflict resolution. At CSUF campus, he has received faculty recognition awards for outstanding achievements in teaching (2011), research (2013), and community service (2015).
He has authored and co-authored peer-reviewed articles and invited chapters on Tibetan culture, identity, nonviolence, and middle way approach to conflict resolution including Sino-Tibetan conflict, intercultural and intergroup communication competence, intergenerational communication context, and others.
Dr. Dorjee received the 2017 Distinguished Faculty Marshall of the College of Communications and Distinguished Faculty Member of the Department of Human Communication Studies awards. Tibetan Association of Southern California (TASC) honored him in 2018 with Appreciation Award for his USCIRF service on behalf of all Tibetans.
His service record is extraordinary. To further freedom of religion, he travelled to Burma and Iraq to monitor religious freedom conditions there. He testified before U.S. Congress about the religious freedom conditions in China, including Tibet, and Long Arm of China in the U.S. academic institutions. He spoke at various venues, such as USCIRF events and Parliament of the World’s Religions, about Tibet, Buddhism, Tibetan culture and Sino-Tibetan relations. He has served on many community-based committees. At the invitations of the Office of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and Tibetan institutes in India, including the College of Higher Tibetan Studies, the Dalai Lama Institute for Higher Education, the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, and the Tibet Policy Institute, he taught intercultural communication, social science research and methodology, teaching pedagogy, and translations techniques.
Leave a Reply