BIO
Dr. Esther Shu-Shin Lee was born in a small town in northwestern China on July 21, 1944. Although Dr. Lee suffered from illness in early childhood, she survived to experience what she describes as an upbringing that emphasized faith and health above all else. Amidst the Chinese Civil War, Dr. Lee’s family moved to Taiwan in 1949. Here, she recalls how her dedication to the piano was born. This would eventually fuel a storied career as a concert pianist in her college years. While performing around the country, Dr. Lee majored in Education at National Taiwan Normal University. In 1967, Dr. Lee accepted a graduate assistantship at Northern Illinois University and began her graduate studies in the USA. By 1971, she had received her PhD from Purdue University. The following year, Dr. Lee moved to Houston with her late husband, Stanton Yao. For years, she was a hardworking stay-at-home mother to her two daughters. With advice from her late father, however, she began working full-time as an Assistant Professor at the University of Houston-Clear Lake. Though Dr. Lee continued to be extremely present in her children’s lives, providing her own care for them while teaching night classes, her eventual tenure at UH opened the doors for a career in higher education. Dr. Lee’s positions in education include serving as the Department Chair of Education at DePauw University and as the Dean of the Graduate School at Troy University-Montgomery. Throughout her career in education, Dr. Lee amassed abundant political experience, ranging across local, state, and national arenas. Through her involvement in the Bush-Quayle 1992 campaign, she became the first full-time, salaried Asian American campaign staff appointed by a presidential campaign. Dr. Lee takes pride in her own congressional campaign in Houston as an inspiration to future generations of Asian American public officials. In addition, she has held several government appointments, including service on the Early Childhood Education Commission, the Teacher Education Committee of Indiana Professional Standards Board, and the National Advisory Committee on Violence Against Women in the US Department of Justice. Furthermore, Dr. Lee leaves her legacy in the Greater Houston Asian American community: in addition to starting Space City Chinese School, a Mandarin-language weekend school, Dr. Lee established the Houston chapter of the Organization of Chinese Americans (OCA). Currently, she lives with her husband, Mr. Bill Bearden. In this interview, Dr. Lee offers a vivid account of both her personal and professional journeys, from her childhood dream of becoming both a concert pianist and medical doctor to her unexpected career shifts and astounding accomplishments in education and public service. She discusses at length how she came to flourish with passion in these fields, as well as the process of becoming involved in a plethora of community-based and political organizations. Her rich life lessons from these experiences include a robust framework for navigating interpersonal relationships and life achievements, which Dr. Lee summarizes as the “several Cs” of communication, competence, credentials, connections, compassion, conviction, and character. Finally, Dr. Lee reflects upon cultural differences in America and offers advice to future generations of Asian Americans.