Professor of Urban Policy and Planning, Hunter College, CUNY
Vivian Louie is Professor of Urban Policy and Planning and Director of the Asian American Studies Center and Program at Hunter College (CUNY). Dr. Louie studies American identity, civic participation and civic education at the intersection of race, ethnicity, immigration, social class and gender. She also writes about the factors that shape educational and workplace success among immigrants and their children. She is the author of two books, Compelled to Excel: Immigration, Education and Opportunity Among Chinese Americans, Keeping the Immigrant Bargain: The Costs and Rewards of Success in America, and co-editor of a third book, Writing Immigration: Scholars and Journalists in Dialogue, along with 30+ academic publications.
Dr. Louie frequently comments on why PK-12 schools and higher education should offer courses in the contributions of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs) to United States history, society, economy, and culture, and why this education is also needed in non educational settings. Hunter College has the largest undergraduate program in Asian American Studies within the City University of New York (CUNY). Both Hunter’s AAS courses, along with its AAS Center events, highlight the coalition building across racial and ethnic lines and among diverse AAPI groups to build the common good.
Dr. Louie has been associate and assistant professor, and postdoctoral fellow in education, as well as lecturer in sociology at Harvard, and a program officer at the William T. Grant Foundation. She earned her Ph.D. and M.A. from the Yale University Department of Sociology, M.A. from the Stanford University Department of Communication, and A.B. (Magna Cum Laude) in History and Literature from Harvard.