Meet Arlene

In 2019, Arlene Chin was selected from a pool of 50 applicants to fill a vacant seat on Tempe’s City Council. She served from May 2019 to July 2020, becoming the first Asian American to hold the position in the city’s history. In 2022, she ran and won the most votes in a city-wide election, thus starting her first full term as an elected Tempe City Council member.

Born in San Francisco to Chinese immigrant parents, Arlene moved to Tempe as a child and attended Kyrene and Tempe Union public schools. Her passion for public service began as a teenager when she joined the Mayor’s Youth Advisory Committee and was part of the delegation that earned Tempe’s All-American City designation. For more than 45 years, she has actively contributed to Tempe through leadership roles, including:

  • Council Member, Tempe City Council

  • Council Liaison, Tempe Industrial Development Authority

  • Budget, Finance, and Economic Development Policy Committee, League of Arizona Cities and Towns

  • Country Co-Director (Zhengiang, China), Tempe Sister Cities

  • Energy, Environment & Natural Resources (EENR) Federal Advocacy Committee, National League of Cities

  • University Communities Council, National League of Cities

  • Asian Pacific American Municipal Officials (APAMO), National League of Cities

  • Defined Contribution (DC) Committee, Public Safety Personnel Retirement System

  • President, Tempe Community Council Board of Directors

  • Chair, Tempe Human Relations Commission

  • Member, Tempe Public Safety Task Force

  • Member, Maricopa Association of Governments (MAG) Human Services Committee

  • Graduate & Board Member, Tempe Leadership (Class XXII)

  • Committee Chair, ASU Alumni Association Homecoming Committee

  • Member, Tempe Mayor’s Youth Advisory Commission

Arlene’s dedication to service and community is deeply rooted in her family’s values. Her father, Allen, was a U.S. Army veteran who served in World War II’s China-Burma-India campaign and was posthumously awarded a Congressional Gold Medal. Her mother, Lillian, built strong communities of support and friendship wherever she lived: Shanghai, Hong Kong, California, and Arizona. Arlene’s family also operated small businesses, fostering a strong sense of belonging, economic advancement, and community.

A graduate of Arizona State University (B.A., Organizational Communication) and Northern Arizona University (M.Ed., Educational Leadership), Arlene worked 20+ years at Arizona State University, holding a variety of positions and building her professional portfolio, including the Alumni Association, Undergraduate Admissions, China MBA Program, and Student Financial Aid and Scholarship Services. Currently, Arlene is the Senior Director of Scholarship Advancement at the ASU Foundation, where she works closely with donors, students, and university partners to identify, create, manage, and expand scholarship opportunities for ASU students.

Arlene’s professional positions and her extensive community organization associations have developed her skills as an experienced leader who listens, as a strong collaborator seeking consensus and understanding, and as someone who believes in the power of relationship development. Arlene enjoys learning about people, supporting and assisting others to reach their goals, working with diverse groups to achieve goals, and respectfully collaborating on complicated issues.