ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT
Maggie Chang ’02 by Charlie Ramseyer
Class of 2002 graduate Maggie Chang spent ten years teaching art classes and encouraging students to pursue their artistic dreams before she took the leap to pursue her own. And leap she did! In 2016, Maggie left her full-time teaching position at LaGuardia Arts High School (the public school that inspired the film and TV show Fame) and moved across the country to pursue her childhood dream of writing and illustrating children’s books, an endeavor she had taught but until then, only ever fantasized about. Though this transition initially brought about its own set of doubts and fears, she received a great deal of encouragement from her Wichita Collegiate community. LOOKING BACK TO MOVE FORWARD
Before her big move, she was able to come back and spend some time in Kansas. While here, she attended the memorial for longtime WCS teacher Bill Colbert. She said, “It takes a special community to be able to grieve together after being apart for many years and then to leave the day somehow feeling uplifted about life. Perhaps it was my encouraging conversation with Mr. B. Perhaps it was getting the opportunity to tell
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him that I became a high school art teacher and thank him. But I’m certain I was reminded of how my WCS teachers believed in me, and I know that day really did help me take those next big life steps.”
Time spent in Gary Buettgenbach’s class was something Maggie reflected on often during the interview. While his room was her self-described “happy place,” when asked about how her time at WCS shaped her experiences since then, she said it truly came down to how her teachers believed in her. Maggie talked about how she grew up with a hardworking, single mom and her grandparents. When by the start of her sophomore year both grandparents passed away, it was her WCS teachers who helped give her the solid and consistent footing she needed to believe in herself.
“Whether I needed Mrs. Mykel to proofread my essay for correct grammar, or Mr. Farmer to break down
Maggie with her recently published book Geraldine Pu and Her Lunchbox, Too! differential equations for the umpteenth time, or Mr. B or Mrs. Crowley to stay late and lock up after finishing an art or research project--they were there for me.” She noted they were always willing to step outside of the 45 minutes of class and help with finishing an art project, research paper, or just talk about life’s questions, big and small.
Her next stop after WCS was the University of Pennsylvania, where she majored in Visual Studies. It was an interdisciplinary study of neuroscience, art history, and fine art, and allowed her to merge all of her interests in life and social sciences with art.
Becoming a published author and a mother in the same year was the realization of some of her biggest dreams, but Maggie doesn’t plan to stop there. If anything, her time at WCS taught her that she is capable of pursuing any and all dreams that she has.
