It was her parents’ strong work ethic and sheer determination that was the driving force behind Dr. Jenny Lee. Immigrating to San Diego from Seoul, South Korea, at age 3, Lee watched her parents overcome challenging obstacles in order to make a living for their family.
“Although my parents did not earn any degrees in the U.S. and barely spoke English, they instilled in me the value of hard work,” Lee says. “Whether they worked in an assembly line factory, deli shop, and, finally a dry cleaner, my parents served as a model in my approach to education. They taught me that, while we can’t always choose our circumstances, we can always work to improve them.”
Lee took that advice to heart. “I clearly recall a time when I was torn on whether to go off to college or stay with my family in order to help the family business. When I shared my inner struggle with my mother, she told me that I must go to college so that I would not have to work with my hands as she and my father had done throughout their lives.”
For the past 15 years, Lee has devoted her time to teaching, service and research on college access for underserved populations. “I created a service-learning outreach course while I was a graduate student at UCLA and then a similar course when I became a faculty member at the University of Arizona. These service-learning outreach courses prepare college students as mentors and tutors to low-income middle and high school students in local underserved communities. With the support of private donations and a foundation grant totaling almost $500,000, there are now approximately 100 college students serving six local schools per semester and countless secondary students who are now preparing for higher education. I continue to research inequalities in college access but have also since started investigating issues of access and educational mobility globally.”
