Hired at St. John’s after graduating from its master’s program. Three years later, she was named a dean.
Dr. Chang associated with a whirlwind of characters: Catholic priests, Chinese gangsters, American lawmakers, a Taiwanese general and a fantastically corrupt city politician, to name a few.
She had been married three times. One husband was involved in organized crime; another told the police before succumbing to gunshot wounds that she was behind it. Police suspected her as having a role in the murder of her first husband.
She offered honorary degrees to people of wealth or influence, then
soliciting donations. Two such honorees were Taiwanese industrialists
who were later charged with multimillion-dollar frauds.
Many of the grants, under her control, went to the children of her friends or associates, including one given in
2004 to the granddaughter of Frank H. Murkowski, a former senator and
governor of Alaska.
In 2003, in a
letter, she congratulated Mr. Murkowski, who was then governor, on his
daughter’s election to the Senate and offered them both honorary
degrees.
Four years later, she asked him to enlist his daughter, Senator
Lisa Murkowski, to write a letter supporting the immigration application
of “a St. John’s honorary alumni chairman."
Wang You-Theng, a Taiwanese businessman under investigation for embezzling millions of dollars, was a fugitive, and remains so today.
Federal prosecutors accused her of forcing foreign students to perform household labor in exchange for tuition grants, stealing over $1 million from the university and taking $250,000 from a Saudi prince to organize academic conferences that never occurred.
As her legal troubles mounted, she found friendship among bartenders and casino bus drivers. She would curry favor by lending money to people from Chinese communities in Flushing and to fellow gamblers at the Foxwoods casino in Connecticut, where she was spending more time. She ended her life.
Let us learn of her ways. Just a thought.
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