Indiana Wesleyan University

IWU Degree Leads Nurse Back to Her Native China
By Alan Miller
12/12/05

Joann Yang was near the front of the line when the first student exchange program between China and the United States was established in the late 1970s.

"I was part of the very first few students to come to the U.S.," said Mrs. Yang, who now lives in Fort Wayne. "My visa issue number was No. 11. Today that number has gone up into the millions."

Mrs. Yang received a B.S. degree in nursing at the Dec. 17 graduation at Indiana Wesleyan University. Her degree has led to a job with an international health-care firm that will allow her to travel frequently to China, where she was born in 1960.

Mrs. Yang's 45-year life has been a mixture of sadness and joy, challenges and success.

"I was born into a very unique family," she says. "My parents named me Chih-Yuan, which means 'the fountain of wisdom.'"

Mrs. Yang's father, a descendant of a Chinese emperor, was an architectural engineer. Her mother was a pediatrician. They had a second child, a son who is younger than Mrs. Yang.

"Life was happy and peaceful," Mrs. Yang said. "Unfortunately, this did not last forever. Our lives were shattered by the storm of the Cultural Revolution, which swept through all of China."

When Mrs. Yang was 8, her parents were sent to a labor camp. "We were not allowed to see our parents," she said. "My brother and I lived by ourselves for eight months."

After Mrs. Yang's parents were released from the labor camp, they were not allowed to work at their professions. Both parents were assigned to work as janitors.

"My parents had lost trust in the Chinese government," Mrs. Yang said. "Not knowing what kind of future I would have in China, they decided to send me to the U.S."

The first foreign exchange program was established in the wake of President Richard Nixon's historic trip to China in 1978. Mrs. Yang's family was able to come up with enough money to send their daughter to America.

"I came to the U.S. by myself with two suitcases and $26 in my pocket," she said.

Yang enrolled at West Virginia Tech where she planned to major in computer science, but later changed to nursing. She also met her husband, George, an electrical engineering graduate, who now works for Carrier Corp. in Huntington.

Mrs. Yang has worked as a nurse for 19 years, most recently at Lutheran Hospital in Fort Wayne. That's where she learned about IWU's Bachelor of Science completion program for registered nurses.

"Nineteen years of nursing has made me a strong hands-on nurse," Mrs. Yang said. "I know things are so, but I don't always know why. The professors at IWU have taught me how to find out why. Now I am able to put puzzle pieces together."

Mrs. Yang met a representative of C.R. Bard Inc., when she visited a hospital in China in July. The New Jersey-based company, which manufactures health-care products, was looking for someone with technical skills - but who also spoke Chinese.

It was a perfect match for Mrs. Yang and for Bard.

Mrs. Yang now will travel to Asia - China, Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan - every two months to conduct conferences on the use of Bard products. Her job title is clinical education consultant.

"I took this job not for the money, but for the opportunity to teach nurses to help so many people in other countries," Mrs. Yang said. "I am going to do my best to make a difference in the world. God has planned all this for me a long time ago."

Alan Miller is the University Relations Director at Indiana Wesleyan University.