1. What was a significant location on campus for you? Why?
Campus Club. It was perfectly situated midway between the dorms and the Engineering School. I liked the club and its location so much, I recruited athletes, math and physics majors in my sophomore year and became its VP of Membership and then President in my senior year (1975-76). I was the first woman president of an eating club on Prospect Street. Who would have guessed that back when “girls” made up fewer than 35% of the student body?
2. What was a defining (or pivotal) moment of your life?
I met my future husband at Princeton the day I first arrived as a freshman, on September 4, 1972. We were married on that same day in 1977. We will celebrate our 43rd wedding anniversary on September 4, 2020.
3. How did your personal identity shape your Princeton experience?
I was born the same time Senator Eugene McCarthy was holding hearings about Communists having infiltrated America, so my hardworking, immigrant parents from Shanghai–who loved this country!–taught me to always keep my head low, work hard, do the Right Thing. In the 1970’s, after Kennedy’s moonshot and Johnson’s Great Society years (but sadly, amidst the Vietnam War!) Princeton admitted me and let me become ME. I ran for sophomore class president–and WON! I liked big band jazz, so I got together some math and physics friends and started the Princeton University Jazz Ensemble in 1973 (I hear there are three PUJE bands now??). I wanted to join a club on Prospect Street, but most of them wouldn’t let me bicker (most were still all-male), so I recruited friends (mostly male) and we brought Campus Club back to life. Princeton liberated me, and I have been attempting to pay her back ever since.
4. If you could relive your time at Princeton, what would you do differently?
I would have taken a course in the Politics Department. I must have missed something important by not taking a Politics course, because I just can’t understand what could have possibly led us to where we are as a country, politically, today.
5. If you could relive your time at Princeton, what would you keep the same?
My four years at Princeton were a dream come true for me. But there’s no way to go back, the world is so different now. Onward!
6. What part of your life are you most proud of?
I’ve always tried to do the Right Thing. (Thanks, Mom and Dad!) Now that I’m semi-retired in the field of civil engineering, I’m leading a music society foundation that they established in 1964 in New York City, Si-Yo Music Society Foundation. https://www.si-yomusicsociety.org/ I am leading an amazing team of passionate, brilliant people in conducting the non-profit business mission of the foundation to support classical music artists. It’s truly inspiring work–and very much the Right Thing for me to do.