Welcome

Many years ago, the Chinese community on campus was small, and everyone in Princeton knew everyone else. This wonderful legacy is now quite diluted as the community has grown substantially in size. The goal of this website is to provide you with relevant information about this larger community, and to help promote and stimulate more active social and intellectual interactions among its members.

If you wish to have your name included (or removed) in any of our lists of names, please send us e-mail.

Once a Princetonian, Always …

Many Chinese Princetonians have been in our wonderful community.

In 1926, the late Wu Guo Zhen, who once served as mayor of Shanghai and later as governor of Taiwan, obtained his Ph.D. in political science from Princeton University. In the early 1950s, the late Hu Shih served for a few years as the curator of the Princeton Gest East Asian Library, followed by the late Mr. S. K. Tung. It was customary for new arrivals to visit the Gest Library and be escorted personally by Mr. Tung for a private tour.

In the early 1950s, there were only a handful of Chinese professors on the university faculty. In 1957, C. N. Yang was at the Institute for Advanced Study when the famed Yang-Lee work was awarded the Nobel Prize. There were only a handful of Chinese students on campus. The most notable undergraduate in this era was Gordon Wu '58, who became a very successful developer in Hong Kong, and made many spectacular gifts to Princeton since his graduation. The most notable of the graduate students in this era was the late Prof. C. L. Tien GS'59 who served for seven years as the chancellor of the University of California at Berkeley. He also served as a Princeton trustee for a few years, and was awarded the prestigious Madison Medal by Princeton in 2000. In the late 1950s, the late Prof. Frederick Mote and the late Prof. T. T. Chen established outstanding world-class programs in the study of China and its language for generations of Princeton students. Yu Li-Hua was here also in the late 1950s, and wrote her first novels in Princeton.

Since the 1960s, the number of Chinese Princetonians grew rapidly. Many made very distinguished careers after leaving Princeton. The list of their accomplishments is too long …

The following have received honorary degrees from Princeton University:

This set of pages has been prepared by Bambi Tsui '09. We are most grateful for his generosity.

Of Special Interest

News? Photos?

  • If you have come across any news articles or photographs of events that may be of interest, please feel free to submit them to us for posting as links of interest.