Li-hua Ying (1956–2023), Associate Professor of Chinese
It is with deep sadness and regret that I write to inform the Bard Community of the death of Li-hua Ying, our esteemed colleague, Bard’s senior faculty member of Chinese Language and Literature. She died after a long battle with cancer on January 29th with her husband and son at her side. In addition to her husband Charles Chao and son Kyle Chao, she leaves behind many generations of Bard colleagues, students, and friends.
Li-hua Ying, born in Sichuan in 1956 and raised in neighboring Yunnan, China, was a devoted and beloved teacher and scholar. She joined the faculty at Bard in 1990 and taught continuously until her recent illness. She mentored students, built the Chinese language program from the ground up, and made key contributions to the Asian Studies and Literature program. Before Li-hua’s appointment, a Chinese language program at Bard did not exist; her tireless dedication and pedagogical talent enabled a notoriously difficult language to be learned and mastered by undergraduates at Bard. To her colleagues she was the very “backbone of Asian Studies at Bard.” For her contributions, Li-hua Ying was awarded the Michèle Dominy Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2021.
Li-hua ensured that Bard students studying Chinese had the opportunity to fully immerse themselves in Chinese language and culture. She established and directed the Bard Summer Intensive Chinese Program in China. She personally led groups of students, every summer, for more than two decades, in a two-month immersion program at Qingdao University. And in addition to founding a new area of study, Li-hua made valuable contributions to the curriculum in the Arts and Gender Studies. She was instrumental in helping the Bard Conservatory of Music build its significant relationships with China.
Li-hua received her B.A. from Yunnan Normal University, China and her M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Texas, Austin. Among her publications are “Negotiating with the Past: The Art of Calligraphy in Post-Mao China,” “Vital Margins: Frontier Poetics and Landscape of Ethnic Identity,” and Historical Dictionary of Modern Chinese Literature. She also served for many years as the Executive Director of American Society of Shufa Calligraphy Education, promoting the teaching of Chinese Calligraphy in the U.S.
Li-hua will be remembered by her colleagues, students, and friends for her generosity of spirit, her kindness, and her optimism. These were central to her life and her teaching. Li-hua demonstrated an exceptional commitment to Bard as an institution as well as to her students. Bard’s thriving Chinese language and literature program is a living tribute to her devotion and leadership.
On behalf of the entire Bard community, I wish to extend my deepest condolences to her son Kyle Chao and her husband Charles Chao. We will be in touch with information regarding services as soon as we have details to share. I am sure many will wish to come together to celebrate a beloved colleague.
Li-hua Ying will be missed. The privilege to work alongside her and witness the command, calm, confidence, enthusiasm, and affection Li-hua exhibited in her work and life was, for me, a singular gift and honor.
Leon Botstein
President
Bard College
Post Date: 02-14-2023