Vivian WuWong, History and Social Sciences Department, 1992–2024
Vivian—a self-described history teacher and advocate for equity and inclusion—came to Milton 32 years ago, as she has often said,” to support the Asian students on campus, get Asian Society up and running, and maybe stay for a couple of years.”
In these “couple of years” Vivian raised two wonderful children, D.J. and Jonathan, both of whom attended Milton from the Lower School through the Upper School. As a parent of Lower and Middle School children, Vivian was an active member of the parent community, volunteering her time to help run Swap It, and to ensure the quality of the Lower and Middle School program.
As for her original goals set 32 years ago, Vivian has turned Asian Society into one of the most established culture clubs on campus, helping to transform the culture of Milton. Asian Society is not only a well-attended club, but our Asian population on campus—which 32 years ago consisted of a few students who identified as Asian Americans plus some students from Hong Kong—now comprises students from almost all of Asia. This has transformed our school-wide events on campus with holidays such as Lunar New Year being celebrated as an Upper School event with students gathering in the dorms to make dumplings and a Lunar New Year assembly as part of the regular school calendar.
Vivian was one of the early pioneers of the Transition Program, coming back to campus early (back when faculty meetings started after Labor Day) to teach a week of classes to the Transition students. Vivian also advocated that international students be included in the Transition Program, as she felt that it was vital to the school’s mission, and our community’s commitment to diversity to not just admit a diverse student body, but to ensure that all students could be successful at Milton.
Vivian has also invited, supported and pushed for Milton faculty—and our department specifically—to grapple with the tough questions of representation in our courses, her own work a living example.
Vivian has always included/translated activism from her student days at Stanford and work with the Chinatown community into her teaching at Milton, inspiring countless students. This past spring, Vivian was honored at the Asian American Footsteps Conference with the creation of the Vivian WuWong: Pan Asian Student Leadership Award. Starting in 2025, this award will be presented to the “student(s) who have demonstrated a significant positive impact on the Pan Asian community at their school and/or at the local, state, or national level”. Vivian has also
been a fierce advocate for a diverse narrative of the American experience. Her elective course Asian American History has allowed students to think more critically about what it means to be an Asian American in this country and at what have been predominantly white institutions. Her course provided an important window through which all students could learn about the politics of race in this country while simultaneously helping Asian and Asian American students form their own racial identities. She has also challenged the U.S. History course group to recognize and support these complex readings of our past.
Vivian has also used her life story as a teaching tool to illustrate for students how the windy path of her life allowed her to form her own racial identity. These are things that many of us have taken for granted at Milton. It was not until we did a national search this year to find someone who could teach Asian American history that we understood anew how rare Vivian’s knowledge base and teaching abilities are.
I first got to know Vivian 20 years ago when as a new teacher I was struggling to learn the culture of Milton. In particular, in the course groups everyone was talking about the Constitution test, and when I asked the course group leader what such a test should look like, it quickly became clear that I had asked the wrong question. Somehow, Vivian was able to read my mind, and in passing in the hallway Vivian casually let slip that if I ever needed to know what kind of assignments people were giving their students to stop by her classroom as she would be happy to share her course materials. Vivian has a unique ability to be thinking about how other people are experiencing Milton and she takes the extra step to understanding what needs to be done so that everyone can be their best selves. As department chair, I have been very fortunate to be the recipient of Vivian’s timely emails suggesting a topic that needs to be addressed or a course of action that could be taken to improve our community. I always find myself asking myself, “Why didn’t I think of that? It is so obvious.”
Vivian is someone who has a deep love of both the institution and the faculty. She has led by example, and with the firm belief that we, the faculty, need to shape policies and determine the future course of Milton. In 2007 when the head of school proposed that we get rid of the Middle and Lower schools and turn Milton Academy into a grade 9–12 school, Vivian took action and helped to organize the K–12 Campaign. Overnight, stickers appeared on cars around Milton with the “keep Milton K–12” message. Vivian’s community activism, including strong connections with parents and the K–8 faculty, and belief that all of the faculty needed to fight for what they valued paid off, and today we are still a K–12 school. Saving the Lower School is one of Vivian’s proudest moments in a long and distinguished career at Milton. As the first female Asian American department chair at Milton, Vivian’s guiding belief was that we should always look out for the members of our community who are struggling, and support them. That we should use kindness and intelligence to guide our decision making. That listening is as important as speaking, and that when you see something that is not right, don’t wait for someone else to fix it—take the initiative and get it fixed.
Vivian has shaped who we are as a department, and who we are as a Milton community. She also leaves us with a challenge: How can we practice and make real today the ideals which we profess to define us as a community? We will miss Vivian, and we wish her well as she starts the next chapter of her life. We are excited that Vivian is just down the road, and hope that she will continue to be a presence on campus and in our lives.