Wong will oversee the Center's policies, practices and organizational development to enable the Center to scale up its work and expand institutional effectiveness in producing equitable outcomes for students from racial and ethnic communities underrepresented in higher education.
She will join the Center's leadership, Dr. Estela Mara Bensimon and Dr. Alicia C. Dowd.
Wong has held influential positions in some of Los Angeles' most important organizations. Most recently, Wong was Vice President of Civic Engagement at the
California Community Foundation. In 2006, she was appointed by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to the Los Angeles Neighborhood Council Review Commission and in April 2007 to the city's Workforce Investment Board. In 1993, she joined Rebuild LA, an economic development non-profit formed in the aftermath of the 1992 civil unrest, initially as co-chair and later as general counsel and chief financial officer. She served in that position until RLA sunsetted in 1997. She has also led other non-profits in senior management positions.
Wong's extensive experience in the non-profit and community organization sectors as well her legal advocacy work during her years as Los Angeles Regional Counsel and National Director for the Immigrant Civil Rights Program at the
Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) will be a major asset as CUE enters its second decade.
Her many areas of expertise include public policy work on educational equity. She has also addressed policy implications of the increasing ethnic, cultural and linguistic diversity of California's population and implemented strategies in economic and workforce development.
"We are very proud to have Linda Wong join CUE in this important leadership role," said Dr. Estela Mara Bensimon, co-director of the Center for Urban Education and Professor of Higher Education at USC's Rossier School of Education. "With her extensive knowledge and experience, we are confident she will build on our growth and the significance of what we have been able to accomplish to date. Linda's appointment as Executive Director is a fitting culmination to the celebration of our ten years of equity work."
"I am thrilled to be joining an organization that is at the forefront of research and issues that are relevant within today's complicated world," said Wong. "It's wonderful to be part of a place that values innovative approaches and is making such an impact in higher education."
Her board involvement includes the Los Angeles City Neighborhood Council Review Commission, Member (2006-2007); Union Bank of California, Community Advisory Board Member (2002-2004); Merrill Lynch California Partnership for Economic Achievement, Member (2000-2002); and the Los Angeles Annenberg Metropolitan Project, Board of Governors Executive Committee Member (1995-2001). She was also a trustee of the Educational Testing Service for six years.
Over the years she has been honored with various awards of recognition by the Los Angeles City Council, the YWCA, the Edmund G. "Pat" Brown Institute for Public Affairs, and many others.
