An MIT Family Journey in Paintings

Twenty paintings on view at MIT tell the story of a young couple who traveled from China to Taiwan and then MIT to study, married in the MIT Chapel, forged careers, and sent their children to MIT. The artist, Joyce Wang MCP ’61, uses her paint brush to relate key events of her 50+ years with her late husband, Leon Wang ScD ’65. A public reception for the 20 annotated paintings  in the MIT Religious Activities Center (W11) is set for Monday, Nov. 15, 1-3 p.m. You are invited to stop by!

The artist, a city planner, and her husband, a college professor and earthquake engineer and scientist, lived and worked in several U.S. locales and in East Asia. Joyce Wang earned a PhD at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1981 and worked as a city planner, researcher, and teacher. Leon Wang served as chair of the Civil Engineering Department at Old Dominion University and was passionate about community service for the Asian-American community.

After Leon’s death in 2006, Joyce spent time reflecting on their life together and painting moments in the journey that began when they met as college students in Taiwan. “Rereading our letters from 1954 into the 2000s has become the best therapy for my sorrow. His first letter arrived soon after I got home from college for the first winter break in my freshman year. It was a simple greeting for Chinese New Year and a warm expression of his thanks for our studying together. I didn’t reply because I had never exchanged any letter with a boy.”

The Wangs married in the MIT Chapel on July 22, 1961. Their oldest son Frank PhD ’91 had already published a calculus textbook when he began his MIT mathematics studies. He now works for his own company in Texas providing math-science education materials to school teachers and students. Their  son Mark ’87, ScD ’94 studied physics and mathematics at MIT, won the Compton Prize, and was himself married in the MIT Chapel. He works for Chegg.com, a new startup company in California. Daughter Cindy ’89, SM ’89, a Boston-area ophthalmologist, studied in the Health Science Technology Program as an MD-PhD student at Harvard Medical School.

The exhibit, which runs through December, is co-sponsored by the Office of Religious Life and the Emma Rogers Society, a group that serves more than 5,000 spouses of late alumni and faculty nationwide, keeping them connected to the Institute in their own right.