Legacy of Learning: Kay and Leighton Chen ’66 Honor His Father, Strengthen Asian American Studies at Princeton

As he planned for his retirement years, Leighton Chen ’66 decided living close to the Princeton campus was “a requirement.” A Princeton sports enthusiast since the days when he watched Bill Bradley ’65 play in Dillon Gym, he wanted to continue to root for the Tigers on their home court.

The research chemist and his wife, Kay, a computer scientist, had enjoyed visiting the campus often from their home in Marlboro, New Jersey, in the years their two daughters, Christine ’97 and Stephanie ’09, were students. As retirees, they wanted to be actively engaged with the University and to support the growth of the Program in Asian American Studies.

Rooted in gratitude, shaping what’s next

The Chens’ recent gift to establish the Kenneth Ch’en and Leighton Chen Fund in support of Asian American studies deepens the family’s strong relationship with Princeton. The gift honors the teaching legacy of Chen’s father, Kenneth Ch’en, who was a professor in the religion department. It is also an expression of gratitude for the education Chen and his daughters received as undergraduates and that Kay received during a mid-career fellowship at the University. With this planned gift, Chen also hopes to help combat bias against Asian Americans.

The Chens’ three-generation Princeton story reflects both the University’s evolution regarding diversity and inclusion and the complex history of Asian Americans. It’s also a story of the power of higher education to transform lives, and it begins with Chen’s father, who rose from poverty to become the foremost English-speaking expert on the history of Buddhism in China.

Kenneth’s legacy: From poverty to academic prominence

In his junior year of high school, Leighton Chen’s family moved from Southern California to Princeton. It was 1961, and his father, Kenneth Ch’en (who changed his surname to “Ch’en” for academic reasons; Leighton chose not to use the apostrophe) had accepted a professorship at the University.

Ch’en’s own father had been born in South China and emigrated to the Kingdom of Hawaii in 1890, leaving difficult economic conditions to work on a rice plantation. Ch’en was born in 1907 on a rice plantation his father purchased in Waipahu, part of the newly established U.S. territory of Hawaii; their home had no electricity or running water. (The land Ch’en grew up on is now Hawaii’s Plantation Village, a living museum in Waipahu that celebrates the immigrant groups that settled in Hawaii.) The future Princeton professor worked in the office of a pineapple cannery to support himself through his years at the University of Hawaii, where he majored in history and political science.

Ch’en then went to China’s Yenching University on a scholarship funded by a missionary. While working toward his master’s degree, he met Chao Ying Tan (“Willow”), who was pursuing a graduate degree in Chinese literature. They married in 1935 and moved to Hawaii the following year, where Ch’en taught Chinese at the University of Hawaii. Their first child, Sylvia, was born in 1937.

Fellowships funded Ch’en’s graduate studies at Harvard University, where he earned a Ph.D. in Buddhism and Indology in 1946. Leighton Chen was born in 1945, named for his godfather, John Leighton Stuart, an American missionary who was the first president of Yenching University, championed Ch’en in his studies and served as the U.S. ambassador to China from 1946 through 1949.

After Ch’en’s studies at Harvard, the family moved back to China briefly, where Ch’en was assistant director at the Harvard Yenching Institute and a professor in Yenching’s history department. With revolution brewing, the American consulate helped them relocate, and Ch’en eventually returned to Harvard to teach for several years before accepting a professorship at University of California, Los Angeles.

In January 1961, they moved to Princeton, where Ch’en served as a professor of Buddhism for a decade. Ch’en’s scholarship at Princeton was groundbreaking. He received Guggenheim and Fulbright Fellowships, was named the William H. Danforth Professor of Religion and received the Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching. In 1965, Princeton University Press published Ch’en’s “Buddhism in China: A Historical Survey.” The work sealed the professor’s preeminence on the topic. In 1969, he was selected as a McCosh Faculty Fellow, then the highest honor the University could confer on a professor.

On April 18, 2026, Bryan Lowe, associate professor of religion, through a grant from the Princeton Histories Fund, will host a conference in Ch’en’s honor. The fund supports the study of “aspects of Princeton’s history that have been forgotten, overlooked, subordinated or suppressed.” Lowe wrote that he hopes this two-year project will “shed new light on the contribution of scholars of Asian heritage to the University’s intellectual life, particularly in the humanities … and to help recover the life story of one of Princeton’s first and most prominent Asian-American scholars.”

The conference will examine Ch’en’s remarkable life and contextualize him within a larger community of Asian and Asian American scholars who helped found Buddhist Studies programs in North America.

In addition, Lowe, who specializes in Buddhism in Japan, is creating a multimedia project about Ch’en’s life, using archival sources and a video of an oral history provided by Chen.

Leighton: Asian American studies advocate

In 2013, Chen and other alumni contributed to a fund to endow a new Program in Asian American Studies (AAS) at Princeton. In 2018, an undergraduate certificate was created; AAS became a minor course of study in 2023. The Program in Asian American Studies is now administered by the Effron Center for the Study of America.

Chen’s support for Princeton’s AAS program comes in part from lived experience. In a 2015 interview for a University oral history project, Chen recalled the local reception when his parents moved the family to Massachusetts. “When we bought a house in Arlington,” Chen remembered, “the neighbors tried to keep us out.”

After time in California, where the family enjoyed being part of a large cohort of Asian Americans, the move back East to Princeton was challenging. Chen recalled being one of just seven or eight Asians in his Princeton graduating class of 745. While he said he never experienced racial bigotry as an undergraduate, he did feel marginalized.

In his sophomore year, Chen discovered a newfound passion for cycling that helped him feel a sense of belonging in the University community. Al Povey, Chen’s freshman lightweight rowing coach, also coached the cycling team. Povey had a hunch and trained Chen individually throughout the winter. The coach’s instincts were solid: Chen became a star. The Tigers’ five-man team was the best collegiate cycling team in the nation during Chen’s three years, winners of the National Intercollegiate Cycling Championship. In the spring of his senior year, Chen took top honors at the championship.

Chen, who calls himself a “lucky techie,” is grateful to Princeton for an education that launched his career as a research chemist working with emerging technology. His career culminated with an “eclectic and exciting” role at AT&T Bell Labs that included systems integrations of technologies and evaluating new technologies for the company’s president.

As a retiree now living close to Princeton, Chen has taken, through the University’s Community Auditing Program, “more than three or four times the number” of courses he took during his undergraduate years, he said. Many of those courses, like one taught by Beth Lew-Williams — Princeton’s first professor of Asian American history and the first director of the Program in Asian American Studies — have led to lasting relationships with Princeton faculty. When Tom Christiansen, the former deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, was the William P. Boswell Professor of World Politics at Princeton, he invited Chen to post-lecture dinners with diplomats and domestic China experts. Another faculty friend is Anne Cheng ’85, the Louis W. Fairchild Class of ’24 Professor of English, who, in 2006, became Princeton’s first tenured professor in Asian American Studies.

The Chens’ active retirement years include many pursuits. Kay is a serious tennis player and enjoys pickleball. One of Leighton’s passions is to photograph endangered wildlife in their natural habitats. Both love travel; Chen has been to 60 countries and all seven continents. They also enjoy time with daughters Christine, who majored in sociology and is now a consultant for cultural and performing arts organizations, and Stephanie, a computer science major who works as an engineering manager for an enterprise sustainability platform.

When the Chens joined the 1746 Society in 2018 by including the University in their estate plans, they showed their support for Princeton’s exemplary financial aid program and for the research, programs, facilities and faculty that form the Princeton experience. Their membership helps them continue to extend ties with fellow Princetonians. Chen said that the annual 1746 Society breakfast seminar is a highlight of Reunions for the couple every year.

The Kenneth Ch’en and Leighton Chen Fund adds to their support of Princeton, providing future Tigers with new educational opportunities and advancing the University’s commitment to diversity and inclusion through its Program in Asian Studies.

“My family takes great pleasure to honor my father’s teaching and legacy with this contribution to support the growth of Princeton’s Asian American Studies program,” said Chen.

—Catherine Mallette ’84

To learn more about joining the 1746 Society, please submit a Generations response form or contact us at 609.258.6318 or GiftPlanning@princeton.edu.