Jean Wu

Dr. Jean Wu is the Program and Education Director for the Office of Diversity Education and Development and the Senior Lecturer in American Studies Program, at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts.
Wu says her responsibilities as Program and Education Director are to design and implement curriculum to help faculty develop skills for teaching in diverse classrooms. Wu says she also helps design programs that foster healthy diversity in academic settings.

As Senior Lecturer, Wu’s responsibilities include teaching American Studies courses. Wu said her specific areas of teaching are: race in America, systems of inequality, Asian America, and community work in Boston Chinatown. Wu also advises students in academics, honors theses, and “senior special” projects.

Wu has contributed to Chinatown through her role at Tufts by introducing and recruiting college students to become involved in the Chinatown community, she said. Wu’s class on “Race, Culture, Power, and Politics: Active Citizenship in Boston Chinatown” places students in non-profit community-based organizations in Boston Chinatown to work on community-generated agenda, Wu said.

“Students are given content knowledge on history and contemporary issues of the community in their on-campus portion of the course. My goal is to foster students’ long commitment to ethical community involvement that is focused on racial and social justice for the community. Wu said students need skills, knowledge and awareness for the anti-racist and anti-oppression work as these relate to a racialized targeted community with very limited resources.

Some of Wu’s students have participated in projects like the voter registration and education and library project at the Chinese Progressive Association (CPA), eating history and other programming at the Asian American Resource Workshop (AARW), youth radio and walking tour and membership drive at the Asian Community Development Corporation (ACDC), tutoring and green building project at the Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center (BCNC), and mentoring and tutoring at Josiah Quincy upper school.

While Wu helps students organize these service projects, she also assists with projects that “need bilingual language skills and where behind the scenes work needs to be done,” Wu added.
Wu is also involved with the CPA and the AARW, she said.