Boston, May 12, 2016, — Longtime community leader, and honorary Chairwomen of Chinese Progressive Association Suzanne Lee will receive an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the University of Massachusetts at UMass Boston’s spring commencement this year on May 26 at 3 PM at Clark Athletic Center on UMass Boston Campus.
Suzanne Lee(first from left) and other staffers of Chinatown Community Land Trust pose for a picture.
Educator and community leader Suzanne Lee has been organizing for equality, justice, and democracy for more than 40 years. Ms. Lee worked in the Boston Public Schools for 35 years, first as a teacher and later as a principal. She led a high-profile turnaround at the Baldwin School in Brighton, transforming a low-achieving and divided school into a national model for school improvement.
Lee went on to head the Josiah Quincy Elementary School for 10 years. During her tenure there, the school was named one of the Best 100 Elementary Schools in Massachusetts. As a community leader, Lee helped immigrant mothers launch the first Chinese Parents Association and worked with unemployed garment workers to secure Boston’s first bilingual training programs. She also was a founding member of the Massachusetts Asian American Educators Association, and she served on the Massachusetts Advisory Council on Bilingual Education and on the English Language Learners Task Force for the Boston Public Schools.
Other recipients of honorary degrees include The Honorable Roderick L. Ireland, the first African American appointed tot he Supreme Judicial Court in Massachusetts; Susan Akello Mboya, president of the Coca-Cola Africa Foundation; and the late Honorable Louis Stokes, Congressman from Cleveland.