Dr. Dung Ba Nguyen, a MedCentral Health System radiation oncologist and Ivy League-educated physician, spends part of his free time teaching mathematics, science, and engineering to boys and girls at the Ocie Hill Neighborhood Center in Mansfield’s north end.
Along side his mathematics, science, and engineering project, he asked his wife, Dr. Gulimina Mahamuti, if she would like to start a similar program focusing on music at Ocie Hill. The Chinese-born concert pianist performed at Carnegie Hall last year, is currently a part-time Assistant Professor in piano at Ohio Wesleyan University, and holds a doctorate in piano performance.
Ocie Hill program director Brenda Phillips took them up on their offer right away and wrote a grant to the Richland County Foundation for a music appreciation and keyboard proficiency program which will begin mid-summer. Dr. Nguyen’s sessions began in February.
“My wife and I are very excited about starting these programs at Ocie Hill,” said Dr. Nguyen. “Music and mathematics are in our hearts.”
“He is so smart and so witty. He makes the children want to learn,” said Phillips, who was awarded Richland County Foundation for Dr. Nguyen’s Mansfield science, engineering, and mathematics project. Children from Ocie Hill’s after-school program and boys and girls from the economically-disadvantaged neighborhood are encouraged to participate.
His medical practice is important to him, but he also thinks it’s vital to identify local students with potential and encourage them to apply to institutions of higher learning. He currently interviews students for undergraduate admission to Harvard.
“I came from a poor family,” he said. “I graduated from college and medical school with very little debt because I attended on scholarships, and my PhD was paid for by research grants. I want children to know they do not have to be born into rich or well-connected families to have a good education.”
Dr. Nguyen has perfected his classroom delivery for the past 25 years by lecturing at National Youth Science Foundation summer programs in West Virginia for students from all over the country.
At one of these lectures in 1993, a young girl from Wisconsin was so inspired by him she went to Stanford to study symbolic information systems and became an engineer. That young girl was Marissa Mayer, one of the founders of Google and now Chief Executive Officer of Yahoo.
She has been quoted describing Dr. Nguyen as, “It’s not what he knows, but how he thinks.”
Dr. Nguyen feels privileged that he had such an impact on Marissa Mayer’s life and says the children he meets at Ocie Hill have the potential, like Ms. Mayer, to change the world and make it better.
The late Mansfield City Councilman Ocie Hill would be proud of the work being carried on at a community center bearing his name on Mansfield’s north end. City officials purchased the former Creveling School in 1988 and turned it into a family-centered building that attracts young and old alike.
The Ocie Hill Center, located at the corner of Bowman and Harker Streets, operates on grants, donations, contract services, and tax dollars from the city budget.
Youngsters from communities all over north central Ohio play come to play basketball in a gym refurbished with a $200,000 grant from the Police Athletic League. Thirteen agencies have offices in the building. The building also serves as a distribution center for programs ranging from literacy to health care.
The Mansfield City Recreation Department runs softball, volleyball and football leagues out of Ocie Hill. The site is also home to Police Athletic League basketball program, and the Mansfield Basketball League. The center offers a room filled with free work out equipment for residents who don’t belong to local fitness centers.
The staff adheres to the motto, “We are here today and every day because this is the place where families matter.”
Ocie Hill, who was among Mansfield’s first civic leaders from the African-American community, would nod in agreement.
