April 27, 2023
To Sir with Love
(from left) Jared’s wife Maryann, Hueichen, Chihuang and Jared on a walk around the campus lake at Southern Illinois University – Carbondale in April 2023
In this Centennial Year, the United Board is no stranger to anniversaries and reunions. But the one coming from a scholar once supported by the United Board has struck an uncommonly touching chord.
Jared Dorn spent 25 years working and living at institutions outside the US, including four years as a faculty member at Tunghai University in Taiwan, under a visiting professorship program sponsored by the United Board. That is where he met Hung Chihuang and Chang Hueichen. The couple, now residing in Vancouver, Canada, paid their former teacher a visit in Carbondale, Illinois where Jared now lives in mid-April. Jared sent in photographs of their reunion.
Jared said, “Chihuang and Hueichen were sophomores at Tunghai in 1967 when I first arrived at the Tunghai campus in Taichung. Chihuang came from Kaoshiung and majored in English, and Hueichen came from Ilan and majored in History. I taught Chihuang History of Western Civilization that first year and Hueichen, a history major, in several history courses. My first wife and I did a lot with them and visited both of their families, and we had a graduation lunch for their families at our Tunghai home in 1970.”
Jared and Hueichen on a walk from Ilan when visiting Hueichen’s family in Nanfang’ao (circa. 1968-69)
“They had much to do with my learning about Taiwan and its people and ways. On that residential campus, teachers, students and staff developed close and special—and in many instances life-long—relationships,” said Jared.
Jared shows Hueichen a much cherished calligraphy scroll presented to Jared by his students when he was teaching at Tunghai University . The Chinese characters are the same as those used for the Chinese title of the 1967 film To Sir with Love starring Sidney Poitier (April 2023)
The Hungs’ visit brought back many wonderful memories to Jared and reconnected him with other former students from their class by phone and email in Taiwan and elsewhere.
(Photos courtesy of Jared Dorn)