Dr. Leslie (Les) E. Wong’s career in postsecondary education has allowed him to meet more people than he could possibly try to count, but a poignant encounter with one particular high school student in Michigan has never strayed from his mind.
While serving as president of Northern Michigan University – in a region where nary an Asian American resides – Wong was lingering at a civic gathering in Detroit where he had already given remarks about major endeavors at his institution when the student of Asian descent approached him.
The young man told Wong that he planned to enroll at Northern based solely on the fact that its president “looked like him,” Wong recalls.
That moment, cemented when the student’s parents joined their son to meet Wong, is among the most indelible of his career, which spans the better part of five decades. He didn’t forget the teen’s declaration, either, after he and his wife, Phyllis, packed up to move west so he could take the top job at San Francisco State University in 2012.
Now that Wong, who’s scheduled to step down from the presidency in late July, is packing for yet another cross-country move, he still hasn’t forgotten the young man’s touching comment.
“I mean, it is one thing when an African-American child touched Barack Obama’s hair,” Wong says, “and got excited because he discovered that our country’s president has hair like his. It’s entirely different to think that a student as high achieving as the one in Detroit, who could attend any university of his choosing, had made his decision based on which university was led by someone who looked like the student.”
That encounter in Detroit moved Wong deeply, but it’s fair to say it rarely pops up in press interviews. In fact, a longtime Diverse correspondent only learned of it several years ago while covering the annual conference of the Asian Pacific Americans in Higher Education (APAHE), where Wong is a frequent participant and panelist. A conference organizer recounted the anecdote in front of Wong, whose eyes watered.
