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Saturday, May 21, 2005
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SNAPSHOTS FROM HOME Washington was windy and wet all day on Friday. UD was, as ever, inappropriately dressed. Her sandals squeaked. But she had proper regalia for the degree-granting ceremony she attended. (Not that her regalia was her own. She has never gotten around to ordering her University of Chicago duds. Last year she wore a University of Maryland gown that her husband scared up; this year, a colleague who graduated from the University of Toronto lent her a nice red and white number.) She hooded one of her Ph.D. students and watched onstage with the rest of the faculty as many other students were hooded, including a Korean man who was one of four from the same family graduating that day: ‘ FATHER, THREE CHILDREN, EARN UNIVERSITY DEGREES ON SAME DAY BY MICHAEL BARNETT Knight Ridder Newspapers WASHINGTON - (KRT) - Simon Lee, who believes strongly in education and family, merged those values grandly Friday when he and his three eldest children all graduated from George Washington University. Lee, the founder and chief executive officer of the $170 million Internet technology provider STG Inc., and his two oldest children, Julie and Philip, received master of science degrees from GWU's engineering school. His middle daughter, Michelle, earned a bachelor's degree in business administration. The celebrations mark the first time in the Washington school's 181-year history that four immediate family members earned degrees in the same year, university officials said. It's unclear how many other families nationwide may have pulled off the same feat. Simon Lee, 56, of Falls Church, Va., said the family's achievement fulfilled a goal that most Korean parents had. "Korean parents try to plant their dreams through their children because they were not able to succeed at them," said Lee, the son of South Korean farmers who died before he was 15. He earned an undergraduate degree in South Korea and took graduate classes at GWU in 1980 but had to drop out to support his young family. "I want my children to finish their curriculum at least up to a master's degree." He began his Fairfax, Va.-based company in 1986 with one employee. It's now a major IT provider to the federal government. Two years ago, he returned to school and asked Julie - who had been taking business classes at GWU - and Philip Lee to join him in pursuing engineering master's degrees. "I don't need any more education to get promoted, and I don't need any education to get paid better," said Simon Lee, whose first job when he came to the United States in 1979 was keeping the books at a seafood restaurant in northern Virginia. "Why did I come back to school? Learning never ends." Lee said he also wanted to spend time with a younger generation, jokingly drawing comparisons between himself and Rodney Dangerfield's character in the 1986 movie "Back to School," a comedy about a middle-aged man who joins his son at college. Speaking in an engineering school dean's suite that was named for his wife, Anna, and him after they made a contribution to the university, Lee said the family's combined GWU bills approached $500,000. Michelle Lee started her undergraduate career at Boston's Northeastern University, but transferred after her sophomore year partly because she wanted to be with her family. "It's just kind of funny how it worked out with the rest of my family," the 22-year-old said. ' The most gratifying end of year event for UD was receiving three thank you postcards from students in her Irish Literature class. She was proudest of the one that praised her “snide remarks.” And speaking of Irish -- We’re less than a month away from Bloomsday! Which, UD recently discovered, was the brainstorm of stormy Flann O’Brien, whose novel At Swim-Two-Birds UD placed on the Irish syllabus even though she doesn’t like it. (His humor’s too desperate for her taste.) As faithful readers know, Bloomsday is a big deal for UD, very much worth getting excited about. Here are some preliminary Bloomsday instructions: 1.) Do not confuse the annual worldwide celebration of James Joyce on June 16 with the race in Spokane Washington that also calls itself Bloomsday. 2.) Ignore those who like John Banville call for the end of “commercialized,” “kitschy” Bloomsday. To quote O’Brien, “fuck the begrudgers.” |
