| She was an amazing woman, teacher, and mentor. I will always remember her strength and kindness. She taught me about how to be a proud Asian American woman. To really learn and to think beyond the first conclusion... to connect the underlying dots. She fed me smoked salmon and homemade icecream. She taught me how to play majong. For those and many other things, I will forever be greatful.
LEE C. LEE
ITHACA - Lee C. Lee, Professor Emeritus of Human Development in the College of Human Ecology at Cornell University, died unexpectedly on Sunday, April 30, 2006. Dr. Lee, Cornell's first woman professor of Asian ancestry, was a pioneer of Asian American Studies. She retired in 2004 after a 35 year career at Cornell and after a two-year stay in San Francisco had returned to Ithaca and had been putting the finishing touches on her retirement home on the shores of Cayuga Lake. Lee will be remembered for her energy and enthusiams which inspired successions of Cornell students to excel beyond their self-expectations. She will also be remembered by her colleagues and friends as a fierce and caring force for causes of fairness, student needs, and children's welfare.
Lee was born in Suzhou, China, July 19, 1935, and was educated in Hong Kong. In 1954 Lee, then a teacher at the American School in Taipei, Taiwan, came to the United States as an undergraduate student at Mount Union College in Ohio. She had few financial resources other than the promise of a four-year scholarship but excelled in her academic work and received a B.A. in psychology and mathematics in 1957, going on to earn a master's degree in clinical psychology at Ohio University in 1959. Lee worked as a psychometrician and research psychologist at Fels Research Institute in Yellow Springs, Ohio, prior to completing a Ph.D. in developmental psychology at Ohio State University in 1968.
Lee joined the Cornell faculty in 1968 and taught courses in experimental child psychology, research methods, personality and social development of children, Asian-American identity, and cross-cultural issues in psychology. She was known as a demanding teacher who set high standards of scholarship for her students, while always being available to them as supportive mentor and guide. One of her greatest satisfactions in retirement was to hear from former students expressing their appreciation for what they had learned under her rigorous guidance.
In 1981, with a research fellowship from the U.S. Academy of Sciences, Lee became the first American psychologist to do research in the People's Republic of China after the Cultural Revolution. She studied the development of prosocial behavior in Chinese children in Beijing and Shanghai. In 1986, Lee collaborated with Chinese colleagues from Tongji Medical University at Wuhan, PRC, to work on a two-year, seven-site study on the socialization of Chinese children.
Along with her interests in Chinese childrearing practices, Lee became increasingly concerned about the lack of familiarity Asian Americans had about their history in America and that other Americans had about Asian Americans. She began to develop courses on the Chinese in America; with characteristic initiative, she prompted the Cornell administration to seed a program that led to the formation in 1987 of Asian American Studies at Cornell, the first such program among Each Coast universities. She served as its first director.
In 1992, Lee took a sabbatical from Cornell with a Distinguised Fulbright Professorship and became the founding director of the Hong Kong American Center, based at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, to promote the understanding of American society, culture and the arts of the Hong Kong community and the understanding of Hong Kong in America.
In addition to her organizational skills in launching programs to further Asian-American understandings, she made another pioneering mark in co-editing with Nolan W. S. Zane the "Handbook of Asian American Psychology" (1997), which has been described as a landmark publication in psychology and ethnic studies, with contributions by scholars in a wide range of fields.
Lee was also known for her photographic skills, in particular her candid and informal portraits of people. She documented life in China from a 7000-mile trip she took in China in 1982, as well as scenes in New York City. Solo exhibitions of her work were held at the Everson Museum in Syracuse, the Hartell Gallery at Cornell, at Stanford, in Elmira, and in 1985 at the Asian Arts Institute in New York City, with one of the photos from that show being featured on the front page of the Metro section of The New York Times.
Lee received many honors including an appointment as a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University during 1982-83. She served in a faculty-in-residence role at the Jerome H. Holland International Living Center at Cornell and continued for many years as a faculty fellow. She was noted for her empathy in spotting students who were loners or depressed and she especially looked out for international students. Since 2004 Lee had been serving as a Board Member at Large of the Asian Pacific American Legal Center, based in southern California, to provide legal services, education and civil rights support for the benefit of the Asian Pacific American community.
Lee often expressed her gratitude for the kindness of many people who helped her throughout her years as a student and during her academic career. She used her personal and financial resources to support many causes dear to her heart. Examples are donations of Asian art to the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, support of the Museum's educational programming for school children, and an endowment for Gannett (Cornell University Health Services) created to help students meet emergency health care expenses. Last year, Lee decided she wanted to 'roll back' to students some of the comfort and happiness teaching brought her over the years. She created "Professor Lee Lee's Fund in Gratitude for the Joy of Students." Of these and other such grants Lee was quoted as saying, "All my life, a lot of strangers have been good to me. This is like my payback."
Contributions in Lee's memory may be made to Planned Parenthood, the Task Force for Battered Women, Family and Children's Services of Ithaca, Franziska Racker Centers or a charitable organization of one's choice. Plans for a memorial service will be announced at a later date.
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. I was... utterly surprised and super happy... it's been a lot of work, but a great experience ever since. We kicked the faculty's butt in the traditional First year students vs. Faculty softball game 10-4!!!
