Ms. Marjory Williams, a tutor from Wellesley College (1966-1967), participated in a wheelbarrow race with Chung Chi students.

Wellesley College, located in Boston, Massachusetts, is a prestigious women’s liberal arts college with deep ties to China. As early as the late Qing Dynasty, it donated funds to a missionary school in Peking (which later became Yenching University). In 1919, Wellesley established a sister school relationship with Yenching University, and in 1923, the “Wellesley-Yenching Junior Fellow” was established. This fellowship sent a Wellesley graduate to teach at Yenching University for three years, with the aim of supporting the development of higher education in China.

Since Chung Chi College is the inheritor of the former Yenching University, Wellesley College decided to cooperate with it. They jointly sponsored a senior or graduate of Wellesley to teach English at Chung Chi for two years. The first fellow was Miss Judith Goodson. She came to Hong Kong in 1961 and served as a tutor in the Department of English Language and Literature at Chung Chi, where she was responsible for teaching English, French, Philosophy and other subjects. Early fellows also included Dr. Gail Schaefer Fu, the wife of our former College Head Prof. Philip Yuen Ko Fu.

This programme has been implemented for over sixty years and more than forty teachers or graduates from Wellesley College have served at Chung Chi. Here they could get a closer look at traditional Chinese and Oriental culture, learn Mandarin or Cantonese, and broaden their horizons. Some of them even became scholars; Chung Chi students, in turn, improved their language proficiency by participating in the English teaching and activities organized by programme fellows. College’s teacher and students also gained insights into American knowledge and culture by interacting with fellows, thereby fostering academic exchange between the two institutions. It showcased what our College anthem aptly states, “East and West, through freely sharing, further strength obtain”.