Conrad Lung honored at Hamilton Dinner

When his daughter Stephanie got into Columbia, Conrad Lung, CC ’72, bet she couldn’t beat his grade point average.

At Thursday night’s Alexander Hamilton Award Dinner, she introduced him as the honoree by saying that upon her graduation in 2004, “I was very happy to parade, in his face, my higher GPA.”
Her father attributed this to grade inflation.

“It is the kind of thinking that characterizes people molded by the Core Curriculum,” she explained of his response, “in which each person thinks he is right and everyone else is wrong.” A round of hearty, knowing laughter filled Low Rotunda.

Yet the evening of flowing wine, halibut, and pastries swelled with warm appreciation for Lung, whose roles at Columbia have included founding president of the Asian Columbia Alumni Association, member of the Columbia College Alumni Association Board of Directors, and emeritus member of the Columbia College Board of Visitors.

“You have always been a pioneer,” University President Lee Bollinger said in his speech to Lung, adding, “You saw a world before the age of globalization became a mantra for all of us.” This vision, Bollinger and others noted, has been instrumental in shaping Columbia’s fledgling identity as a global university, especially for Asian American studies.

In accepting Columbia College’s highest honor, the Hamilton Award “for distinguished service” in any field by an alumnus or faculty member, Lung interpreted his path to achievement through a text he read early on in Literature Humanities.

The Odyssey, the story of a journey home, is also the passage to self-realization. Lung’s story traverses continents to reach this end. “Instead of being hopelessly lost, he found himself at his destination, a different man,” Lung explained.

He was born in 1949 in Canton, China, a nation ravaged by foreign occupation and civil war. Even at the age of seven, he described his life as “precarious,” after his family was split apart, then reunited, and he had to work in the afternoons to help support them.

In 1968, his life was changed by an “unexpected event,” he said. The same year as the University’s notorious riots in Morningside Heights, Lung received a thin envelope at his address in China. He expected he had been rejected based on the size of the letter, but he was indeed accepted, and offered a campus job that would essentially pay for college. His reaction was not so much joy as “disbelief and incomprehension,” he told the crowd 41 years later. As an undergraduate, he met his future wife, Yin Lee Lung, BC ’74. Two of his sisters later went on to attend Barnard, his brother attended Columbia, and all three of his children followed in his footsteps on campus.

His daughter Stephanie, now president of the Columbia College Young Alumni Association, said, “I’ve always felt that Columbia was my first family.”

Thursday evening was a fundraising event for Columbia with around 400 guests—some from China and Singapore. Ken Catandella, executive director of the Columbia College Office of Alumni Affairs and Development, said it was a success, though when asked how much money was raised for the night, he said, “I have no idea yet.”

Dean of Columbia College and Vice President for Undergraduate Education Michele Moody-Adams remarked on the turnout of students, who comprised about 100 of the swanky crowd. Catandella explained that these students were invited as guests of Lung, as well as representatives of student groups, and got to enjoy the evening free of charge. By the end, all rose to give Lung a standing ovation.