It Takes a Campus: Christy Cheung

If you're from a different country and arrive as a first-year student at Penn State, it's easy to feel overwhelmed by the multitude of academic and extracurricular options, not to mention students. Christy Cheung, who arrived here having already spent many years on her own, decided that not only would she create a 'family' for herself at Penn State, she'd work to make the transition easier for others like her.

"I was born in Hong Kong and lived there with my parents until I was ten years old," she says. "That's when my parents sent me to a private school in Philadelphia so I could obtain the type of education that was not available at home."

Cheung first lived with her aunt and uncle in Philadelphia but when family difficulties arose, she moved to a small house next door where she lived, alone, beginning in the tenth grade.

"Although my aunt and uncle lived close by, it got very lonely while I was in high school," she says. "I couldn't wait to be around a lot of people."

After graduating from West Philadelphia Catholic High School, Cheung arrived at Penn State, and joined an Asian-American interest service sorority, Alpha Kappa Delta Phi. Discovering a skill and enthusiasm for student affairs and leadership, she quickly joined the executive board for Asia Pacific-American Coalition, and became very involved with the Multicultural Greek Council (MGC), a new governing organization founded in 2002 to represent the many diverse Greek organizations at the University. She serves as the current president.

"In individual sororities you can't really tell what the national chapters do," she points out. "On the national level, I began learning much more about the multicultural, panhellenic, and fraternity councils—and I realized I wanted to work to raise people's awareness of these multicultural groups at Penn State."

To that end, Cheung organized "Rethinking America," the first-ever Penn State MGC event, which will feature Dr. Evelyn Hu-Dehart, a professor of history and Director of the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America, at Brown University. Cheung arranged for Hu-Dehart to meet with development and panhellenic groups and guest lecture in several College classes.

Cheung was also appointed to the Vice President's Cabinet of Student Leaders, a group of 23 student leaders who represent leadership, multicultural, and event-planning groups. The Cabinet, which began in 2004, meets monthly and serves an advisory role for the vice president and other University leaders. Cheung says that the goal is to foster collaboration between students and the administration in a range of areas.

"Basically we give them feedback and tell them what's going on," she explains. "We talk about lots of things-recent student activities, new technology on campus, diversity, the current climate on campus, are examples. It's a great dialogue."

Until this year, Cheung was also the Mentor Coordinator for KEWL (Knowledge, Excellence, Wisdom, Leadership Program), a mentoring program for Asian American and Pacific Islander American students at the University, and Vice President of Membership in the Order of Omega, the national Greek leadership and academic honorary society.

And speaking of academics, Cheung is a psychology major with business option, and a minor in human development and family studies (in the College of Health and Human Development). She will graduate in spring 2006. Currently, she is doing research for Professor Tom Borkovec and Professor Ken Levy, both in the Department of Psychology. She is also the recipient of the John Oskison Trustee Scholarship, established by Kye Mitchell ('91 LA) and her husband, Scott.

Cheung's own personal experiences have made her especially interested in family and developmental psychology, and she plans to eventually attend graduate school; she is also weighing pursuing a career in student affairs. But for the immediate future, her own family in Hong Kong comes first.

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