Dr. Yung-Chen LU is a professor emeritus of the mathematics department at The Ohio State University. He founded the Asian Meal Program to provide nutritious hot lunches for our Asian-American elders in 1994 and the Columbus Asian Festival in 1995. He started the Asian Free Clinic, which provides care to about 400 people annually. Dr. Lu is a recipient of the 2008 LifeCare Alliance Geraldine Hayes Spirit Award, 2012 Governor’s Martin Luther King Humanitarian Award and was inducted into the 2013 Central Ohio Senior Citizens Hall of Fame. In 2012, he organized a group of volunteers to compile the “Chinese in Columbus: A History” exhibition to celebrate Columbus Bicentennial. It is a brilliant idea to invite community leaders like Dr. Lu to talk about Chinese American history in K-12 classroom as one part of the educational activities. Ms. Xiaoyan ZHANG, teacher at the Ohio Contemporary Chinese School, designed the curriculum of Chinese History for her class, and added “Chinese American history” to the curriculum using the materials entitled “Chinese in Columbus: A History “.
In addition to Dr. Lu’s presentation, she also designed student’s performance-based activities, including classroom discussions, and report on the interviews of their parents outside of classrooms.
This project is supported by Ohio Contemporary Chinese School and National East Asian Languages Resource Center at the Ohio State University.