Lancy Chien Jen

Lancy C. Jen (1928–2000) was a leader of the Savannah Chinese community as well as a highly respected educator and philanthropist. She taught at Johnson High School, Savannah Country Day School, Armstrong Atlantic State University, and Savannah State University for 25 years before her retirement from the Georgia State University System as Professor Emeritus. She was honored twice as a STAR teacher of Chatham County while teaching high school. Many of her students remember her as a demanding yet caring teacher who was never absent a day in 25 years.

Through the Pei Ling Chan Charitable Trust honoring her father, Lancy Jen gave numerous scholarships to educational institutions in Georgia, Florida, and Portland, Oregon. Her philanthropy also created the Pei Ling Chan Garden for the Arts in Savannah, and the S.C. Chan Auditorium at Savannah State University. Lancy and her husband, Jim, made generous donations to Savannah College of Art and Design. The SCAD Jen Library, an 85,000-square-foot building, occupying an entire city block, is one of the largest art and architecture libraries in the United States. 

Lancy Jen also made donations to the School of Environmental Science and Forestry at the State University of New York in Syracuse where she earned a pulp and paper degree, having come to the United States from China as a graduate student in 1948.

Respected as a leader in the Savannah Chinese Community, Lancy Jen was influential and hard-working, not only raising the status of Chinese Americans but also promoting the total integration of her people into Savannah’s professional, cultural and social life.

Locate on Walk: 

• Naming Wall (Right Wall), 1-1