Big Bend’s Tyler Wallace to Receive ACCT Pacific Region Faculty Award

MOSES LAKE – Big Bend Community College tenured instructor Dr. Tyler Wallace will soon be awarded the 2024 Faculty Award for the Pacific Region by the Association of Community College Trustees (ACCT).

ACCT’s Regional Awards recognize the tremendous contributions made by community colleges and their leaders to meet the needs of their communities. Individuals and colleges recognized at the regional level will contend for the national-level recognition of five ACCT Association Awards.

“Tyler Wallace actively seeks to incorporate different teaching strategies into his classes that will not only engage students, but also support each of them to succeed,” said Dr. Bryce Humphreys, Vice President of Learning and Student Success. “For instance, he has done a great job of adopting different technology tools.”

Dr. Wallace has been with Big Bend since 2008, holding various faculty and admin/exempt positions. Currently, he is a full-time math instructor, serves as the Division Chair for Math and Science and is the President of the Faculty Association.

“I am very honored to be recognized with the Pacific Region ACCT Faculty Member award,” Dr. Wallace said. “I am thankful to the college, our President, Dr. Tweedy, and the BBCC Board of Trustees for nominating me for this award.”

Dr. Wallace’s passion for math and teaching has led him to find innovative ways to connect with students, including becoming an ‘instructor by day and social media influencer by night’ as he put it. He began a TikTok page in the Fall of 2021 to connect with students where they were at — and where students were at was social media. Since then, he has also expanded to Instagram, and on the two platforms he creates videos that include solving math problems, math jokes and helping people understand math in digestible pieces. These videos have been highly successful and have brought him a following of over 130,000 on TikTok and over 220,000 on Instagram. His goal is to highlight the importance of math and create opportunities to make math more accessible, interesting, and relatable.

“Whenever I meet someone and they find out I’m a teacher, they ask, ‘what do you teach’, my answer is, ‘I teach students.’ The students are at the heart of our mission at the community college and being a small part of their success story is an honor and privilege I do not take lightly,” said Dr. Wallace. “My message to my students is simple, the difference between the master and the beginner is that the beginner has failed more times than the beginner has tried. Do not be afraid of failure, it is the best teacher on the path to success.”

Dr. Wallace will receive the award during the Annual ACCT Awards Gala on October 25, in Seattle, Washington, at the 2024 ACCT Leadership Congress.