Jerry Yin, professor of Medical Genetics and Neurology, has played a large role in uncovering the historical relations between UW-Madison and China. From 2015 to 2020, Yin was the director of the Wisconsin China Initiative, where he, his wife Hong Zhou, and the director of the Center for East Asian Studies (CEAS) Laurie Dennis conducted several projects to investigate and publish their findings about past relations between the university and China.
While investigating, Yin learned of an esteemed Chinese alumnus, Yichun Zhou, who graduated from Madison in 1909 with an MS in Education. Upon returning to China, Zhou became the head of a prep school that equipped elite Chinese students with education and language skills to come to the US and obtain a higher degree. Nearly 100 of the 1400 students who went through the program attended UW-Madison.
“Yichun ZHOU embraced and embodied the Wisconsin Idea,” remembers Yin. Zhou’s leadership of the prep school placed an emphasis on tutoring as a tool to give back to the community. The prep school reflected a Western liberal arts-style instruction and was funded by the Boxer Indemnity Scholarship, a US program that aimed to give Chinese students the opportunity to pursue higher education in America. The school went on to become Tsinghua University in 1926 and is generally acknowledged as the “MIT of China.”
“These are amazing stories of Badgers whose impact on their world took the Wisconsin Idea to a global stage,” said Dennis, who, with East Asian Librarian Anlin Yang, organized the Chinese Badgers event as a celebration of these influential alumni.
Based on the Wisconsin China Initiative research findings, CEAS built student profiles for three of the one hundred students who came to UW-Madison through Zhou’s prep school program. The three students highlighted were Wen-Shion Tsu, Yuan-Lung Yeh, and Wen-Ying Peng, all of whom earned their degrees in Madison between 1910 and 1920.
The event, which took place on April 8, consisted of undergraduate and doctoral students presenting these profiles, highlighting each alumni’s academic achievements and different experiences through stories and artifacts. Multiple second-, third-, and fourth-generation family members of the alumni visited the US to join the commemoration, share their thoughts, and celebrate the lives of Chinese Badgers with the campus community.