Wu Yi-Fang

Wu Yi-fang (Wu I-fang, 1893–1985) Wu came from a well-educated family and throughout her life attended numerous schools in both China and America, which played a large role in her advocacy for women's education in China. This advocacy was most persistent and prominent in her role as president of Ginling College where she was able to actively integrate the educational policies she believed in.

Wu was also a significant Chinese diplomat abroad, especially in America, where she attained her MA and PhD in biology. Her role as a Chinese diplomat was most evident when in 1945 she was sent as the only woman part of the Chinese Delegation at the San Francisco Conference. As she was born in the winter, her father, Wu Shou-xun ) nicknamed her “”, which translates as “Winter Born”. Wu came from a well-educated family: her grandfather was a magistrate in Jingzhou, Hubei, her father served as the director of Yali Bureau in Hubei, as well as a magistrate of Dangyang County, and her uncle was a famous scholar in Hangzhou. Wu was educated from a young age, studying at home with her brother at the age of seven, then attending Hangzhou's Hongdao Girls' School, Shanghai's Qiming Girls' School, and Suzhou's Jinghai Girls' School with her sister. As she frequently changed schools and moved cities, her experiences fuelled her curiosity about the world outside her home.

In 1909, Wu's father was framed by his boss for “embezzling public funds”. On June 25, 1919, Wu Yi-fang was one of five graduates in the college's first graduation class and became one of the first female college students in China to obtain a bachelor's degree. In America, Wu served as president of the North American Chinese Christian Student Association, vice president of the Chinese Students Association in the US, and president of the Chinese Student Union of the University of Michigan. Wu earned her master's degree in 1924, and her doctoral degree in 1928, writing her dissertation on The Life History of the Black Fly . ' In 1928, Wu – a first class graduate from Ginling Women's College and had completed her Ph.D. at the University of Michigan – returned to China and accepted the position of president. and often seen as one of the few female leaders in a male-dominated administrative body, Wu accomplished bold reforms in teaching and educational policies. Through a reliable network of connections, she was able to reach out to the first college student, Y.T. Zee to arrange a conversation with the foreign minister. Hence, after meeting with the Ministry of Education in April 1929, Wu wanted to maintain the Christian spirit but the officials declined her proposition. After two years of working on officially registering Ginling as a national educational institution, she was able to register it as a college (xueyuan), however, not as a university (daxue) since it did not reach the amount of departments needed for the government standards. Only core majors were kept such as Chinese, English, History, Geography, Chemistry, Biology, Sociology, Music and PE. Wu had a remarkable ability to remain composed in heated arguments and oftentimes effectively served as an arbiter between rivals. In her position, Wu sought to uphold and establish democratic values in China and often warned of the dangers of a political system which appoints its own representative, such as the CCP that was beginning to gain popularity in China in the late 1930s. As a lifelong advocate for the benefits of an efficient democratic government, Wu viewed the CCP as yet another group seeking to consolidate power and believed that both the CCP and the Chiang governments were driven by their self-interests and would not be able to work together for betterment of the Chinese nation. Wu had also become quite critical of corruption and inefficiency within Chiang Kai-Shek's government. Wu believed that the communists were not successful at achieving support due to their ideology but rather due to the “continual poverty and skillful (use of) propaganda”. As the communist victory over Chaing Kai-Shek became evident in 1949, Wu remained hopeful, hope which grounded in Chinese tradition and an effective education system. After the communist victory, Wu began to support that new government and changed her criticisms of the Communists to positivity, based on its ability to efficiently organize people and institutions. Wu began to take on an active role in the communist government and joined several committees such as the Nanjing Peoples Representatives in order to ensure that her advocacy for education continued to be heard. Despite initial reservations due to a kidney related illness, Wu accepted the position and had been chosen to represent China due to her short successful political career as a part of the PPC. At the conference, Wu had several responsibilities including revising the preamble and taking part in discussions between nations. Wu also advocated for women's rights, and her responsibility of being part of the team revising the preamble allowed her to ensure the inclusion of women's right in the founding document of the United Nations. Wu opposed the creation of a commission dedicated to investigating women's rights issues because she believed that it inherently separate women and men and should instead focus on human rights over all. Wu was upset that the Chinese delegation often chose to blindly follow the United States agenda, one which never asked the Chinese delegation for any consultation or advice. After Wu's diplomatic success in San Francisco in 1945, Wu received over 142 requests for her audience, two honorary degrees from American Universities, and gave numerous talks both in person and broadcast across the United States. Her more personal views were that the social services undertaken by the college both lacked in longevity, depth in matters of alleviating the distresses of the working and peasant classes of society, and called for a “lifeless” and foreign interpretation of both texts and pursuits of knowledge. This was to bring an end to a culture of elite superiority and practices and “self-orientalism.” A way in which such change was created in the college was in their dealings with rural populations and Christian projects to match the political landscape at the time. After their petitioning it was stipulated that heads of the Christian school must be of Chinese ethnic descent, that religious courses be non compulsory, and that patriotic knowledge and instruction be imbedded in the curriculum. In this respect, her concern was that the college was not “training women workers for the rural families.” Wu's initial plan was to create a training course in which young women would be trained in how to work the country. She had hoped to hire a Chinese instructor but in facing difficulty with this she instead encouraged former students to pursue degrees in rural sociology in the United States of America. In a letter to a colleague Wu expressed her attitudes towards this recommendation, saying, “rural conditions in America and here are so different…studies in America cannot help in the practical work, however students could get at the fundamental and the application according to conditions here.” In 1939, Wu was successful in the creation of the Department of Home Economics for which courses began in the fall.

Death Wu Yi-fang died on November 10, 1985, due to respiratory infections and heart failure.

Her memorial service was held in Nanjing, and more than 700 representatives from diverse backgrounds attended, reflecting the widespread impact she had on the world around her.