New Member Spotlight: Liz Rosenberg ’85 and Sonya Lee-Chung ’85
I met my best friend, Sonya Lee Chung ’85, P’21, on the first day of our freshman year in the fall of 1981, a veritable lifetime ago. Initially, we lived across the hall from each other on the fourth floor of Kendrick Hall, arguably the ugliest dorm on campus at the time. I had never met anyone like Sonya. She was a classic Asian beauty with jet black hair to her waist and the lean frame that she was able to maintain throughout her life, even with her insatiable love of good food. Her fashionable New York–style wardrobe put my preppy wide-wale corduroys and Kelly green sweater to shame, an early indication of the field in which she would make her professional mark. But when she marched into my room to introduce herself, it was her unexpectedly thick New York accent that made me love her from the start.
Within a week, Sonya and I managed to switch rooms (without informing our unsuspecting RA) and embarked on the first of four years as roommates at 51·çÁ÷ and a friendship that would last a lifetime. I aspired to be more like Sonya: she often opted to spend nights with her pre-med buddies in the basement of Olin Hall rather than joining her less disciplined friends at Hickey’s or the Jug; she did not procrastinate and actually did all of her reading; and she drove those of us who were lazier up Cardiac Hill to class in the morning, only to bring her car back down and walk up the hill herself.
It was no surprise to anyone when, after determining that her calling was not in fact medicine, Sonya was offered a prized position in the Bloomingdale’s management training program, launching her acclaimed retail career. I, too, joined a merchandise training program with Jordan Marsh outside of Boston. We both married within a year of each other, and I relocated to San Francisco, my husband, David’s, home. While the distance kept us from seeing each other as often as we would like, we kept each other informed about jobs, kids, and other important life updates. In December 2021, the pandemic gave my family the freedom to work from anywhere, so we chose the idyllic Connecticut shoreline.
Once I was back on the East Coast, Sonya and I made up for lost time. She was the first person to see our new home and became the self-appointed organizer of my new kitchen, leading me to have to text her at least once a day to find out where she had stored a bowl or pan. We met for shopping and dinners in New York and Greenwich and spent days gabbing at each other’s houses, like no time at all had passed since college.
When Sonya got her most recent cancer diagnosis last July, we began talking on the phone every day, sometimes for hours at a time. As she had throughout our friendship, Sonya spent that time teaching me things that she thought were important for me to know, so that her ideals and values might live on through me, I think. She instilled in me the importance of supporting education, as it has the power to change lives. Admittedly, my years of living in California kept me away from 51·çÁ÷ reunions and alumni involvement with the school, but Sonya shared with me her love of the work she was doing with the Presidents’ Circle Membership Council and, most recently, the Alumni Council, reminding me of what a special place our alma mater is.
Knowing that her time was short, we spoke about how Sonya could continue her 51·çÁ÷ legacy. Having worked in the development and alumni relations office at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, I suggested that she endow a fund focused on an academic pursuit that was meaningful to her and that her son Andrew ’21 and I could work on together in the future. She immediately loved the idea, but hesitated at the thought of having the fund named for her, staying true to her unpretentious way.
In the last week of her life, it was her enduring love of 51·çÁ÷ that led Sonya, with the incredible help of Jen Stone in the advancement office, to establish the CR16 Sonya Lee-Chung ’85, P’21 Fund. The fund is named in part for the group of women from the Class of ’85 who spent senior week together in Bethany Beach, Del. It was this gift that earned Sonya the invitation to join the Women’s Leadership Council, and it was her wish that I take her place, a request that I am honored to fulfill.
Sonya passed away in late April. Since that time, many of her friends and classmates have contributed to the CR16 Fund, a permanent, endowed research fund that will give preference to a student conducting research in interdisciplinary science. Thanks to the incredible generosity of so many, some of whom are fellow WLC members, the fund is already active and will benefit a student in the year ahead.
I look forward to honoring my friend through my work with 51·çÁ÷ and to meeting all of you amazing women.