Yife Tien | |
---|---|
Born | Yife Tien April 1955 (age 69) |
Nationality | American |
Education | University of Cincinnati (BA) |
Occupation(s) | Educator, Businessman |
Known for | Founder of RVUCOM |
Board member of | IAOMC |
Spouse | Lucy Chua |
Children | Christopher Tien |
Parent(s) | Paul Tien, Ming Tien |
Yife Tien (born April 1955) is a Taiwanese-American educator and businessman. He is founder and chancellor of Rocky Vista University College of Osteopathic Medicine, as well as the former chancellor of American University of the Caribbean.
Yife Tien was born in Taiwan to Ming and Paul Tien. In 1964, the family emigrated to America, where they initially settled in Ohio. His mother worked at an electronics company and his father served as president of Belmont College (then known as Belmont Technical College). [1]
Tien graduated from the University of Cincinnati. He then attended Universidad Central del Este with hopes to become a doctor, but dropped out after one year. Shortly after, in 1978, he moved to the Caribbean island of Montserrat to help his father run his newly established for-profit medical school, the American University of the Caribbean (AUC). [2]
By 2003, Paul had retired and moved back to Taiwan, leaving Yife to serve as chancellor and handle AUC's day-to-day operations. He has served as Chief Operating Officer of the school since 1995. [3]
In 2006, Tien founded Rocky Vista University College of Osteopathic Medicine (RVUCOM). He had served as Chancellor until 2019. [4] [5]
In the September 2008 issue of Forbes Magazine, Tien was featured in a four-page spread for his entrepreneurial achievements in the medical education industry. [6]
Tien currently sits on the board of the International Association of Medical Colleges and has served as its treasurer. [7]
Tien is also a real estate investor, with a portfolio of properties both in Florida and California. [3]
In 2011, Tien and his father sold AUC to DeVry for $235 million in an all cash deal. [8] In 2019, Rocky Vista University was acquired from Tien by Medforth Global Healthcare Education for an undisclosed amount. [9]
Tien has a younger brother, Henry. Beginning in 2006, Yife and Paul were embroiled in a multi-year legal battle against Henry and Ming (by that time Paul and Ming had divorced). Henry and Ming argued they were entitled to 50% of the AUC enterprise, which Yife and Paul denied. The suit was eventually settled in Yife and Paul's favor. [10]
Tien was a contributor to the 2008 campaign of Mitt Romney for U.S. president. [11]
He is married to Lucy Chua, M.D. The couple have one son named Christopher, who attended the University of Miami.
The family primarily resides at their home in Coral Gables, Florida The couple have two homes in the Beverly Park neighborhood of Beverly Hills, California as well as a beach house in Malibu, California. [12]
The University of California, Irvine is a public land-grant research university in Irvine, California. One of the ten campuses of the University of California system, UCI offers 87 undergraduate degrees and 129 graduate and professional degrees, and roughly 30,000 undergraduates and 6,000 graduate students were enrolled at UCI as of Fall 2019. The university is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity" and had $523.7 million in research and development expenditures in 2021. UCI became a member of the Association of American Universities in 1996.
Chang-lin Tien was a Chinese-American professor of mechanical engineering and university administrator. He was the seventh chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley (1990–1997), and in that capacity was the first person of Asian descent to head a major research university in the United States.
Midwestern University (MWU) is a private medical and professional school with campuses in Downers Grove, Illinois and Glendale, Arizona. As of the 2022–23 academic year, a total of 2,758 students were enrolled at the Downers Grove campus and 3,782 were enrolled at the Glendale campus.
The American Osteopathic Association (AOA) is the representative member organization for the more than 197,000 osteopathic medical doctors (D.O.s) and osteopathic medical students in the United States. The AOA is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, and is involved in post-graduate training for osteopathic physicians. Beginning in 2015, it began accrediting post-graduate education as a committee within the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, creating a unified accreditation system for all DOs and MDs in the United States. The organization promotes public health, encourages academic scientific research, serves as the primary certifying body for D.O.s overseeing 18 certifying boards, and is the accrediting agency for osteopathic medical schools through its Commission on Osteopathic College Accreditation. As of October 2015, the AOA no longer owns the Healthcare Facilities Accreditation Program (HFAP), which accredited hospitals and other health care facilities.
Western University of Health Sciences (WesternU) is a private medical university in Pomona, California. With an enrollment of 3,724 students (2022–23), WesternU offers more than twenty academic programs in multiple colleges. It also operates an additional campus in Lebanon, Oregon.
Ming Hsieh is a billionaire Chinese-born American entrepreneur and philanthropist. He founded Cogent Systems in 1990, and sold it to 3M in 2010. In 2011, he founded a genetic testing technology company, Fulgent Genetics.
The American University of the Caribbean School of Medicine (AUC) is a private for-profit medical school. Its main basic science campus is located in Sint Maarten, and administrative offices are located in Miramar, Florida, in the United States. AUC is owned by Adtalem Global Education. The executive dean of AUC manages the medical school from offices in Miramar, Florida.
Most physicians in the United States hold either the Doctor of Medicine degree (MD) or the Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine degree (DO). Institutions awarding the MD are accredited by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME). Institutions awarding the DO are accredited by the Commission on Osteopathic College Accreditation (COCA). The World Directory of Medical Schools lists both LCME accredited MD programs and COCA accredited DO programs as US medical schools. Foreign-trained osteopaths do not hold DO degrees and are not recognized as physicians in the United States or in other jurisdictions.
A.T. Still University (ATSU) is a private medical school based in Kirksville, Missouri, with a second campus in Arizona and third campus in Santa Maria, California. It was founded in 1892 by Andrew Taylor Still and was the world's first osteopathic medical school. It is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission. ATSU includes three campuses on 200 acres with seven schools and colleges.
Paul Shu-Pei Tien is an American educator who was born in Tianjin, China and grew up in Taiwan. He emigrated to the United States to pursue graduate education in electrical engineering, and later became a professor of electrical engineering in Ohio. In January 1978, Tien established the American University of the Caribbean School of Medicine (AUC) on the Caribbean island of Montserrat. AUC is now located on the island of Sint Maarten.
Sigma Sigma Phi, is the national osteopathic medicine honors fraternity for medical students training to be Doctors of Osteopathic Medicine (D.O.). The National Osteopathic Medicine Honors Fraternity is a group united in the interest of preserving the highest class of medical scholastic excellence and includes community service.
Rocky Vista University (RVU) is a private, for-profit medical school with campus locations in Englewood, Colorado, Ivins, Utah, and Billings, Montana. The school opened in 2006 as the only modern for-profit medical school in the United States although other for-profit schools have since opened. RVU's College of Osteopathic Medicine (RVUCOM) grants the Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine degree and admitted its inaugural class of medical students at the Parker, Colorado campus in August 2008.
Carrington College is a network of for-profit private colleges with its headquarters in Sacramento, California, and 17 locations throughout the Western United States. Established in 1967, it has a student enrollment of over 5,200 and 132,000 alumni.
Adtalem Global Education Inc. is a US corporation based in Chicago, Illinois, that operates several for-profit higher education institutions, including American University of the Caribbean School of Medicine, Chamberlain University, EduPristine, Ross University School of Medicine, Ross University School of Veterinary Medicine, and Walden University.
The College of Osteopathic Medicine of the Pacific (COMP) is a private medical school for osteopathic medicine located in downtown Pomona, California. The college opened in 1977 as the only osteopathic medical school west of the Rocky Mountains. COMP was the founding program of Western University of Health Sciences (WesternU), which now has eight colleges in addition to COMP, each offering professional degrees in various fields of healthcare. COMP has a single four-year program, conferring the Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine (D.O.) degree. Graduates are eligible to practice medicine in all 50 states and more than 85 countries.
The Burrell College of Osteopathic Medicine(BCOM) is a private, for-profit medical school. The main campus is located on the New Mexico State University (NMSU) campus in Las Cruces, New Mexico, and their second campus is located on the Florida Institute of Technology (FIT) campus in Melbourne, Florida. It is accredited by the American Osteopathic Association's Commission on Osteopathic College Accreditation and graduated its first class in May 2020.
Clinton E. Adams is an osteopathic physician, former medical school dean at Western University of Health Sciences, and former president of Rocky Vista University. He serves as a member of the board of directors at Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education. He served in the US Navy for 30 years, retiring as rear admiral.