Wu Yi-fang (26 January 1893-), distinguished Christian educator who was the first woman college president in China. She headed Ginling College from 1928 to 1952.

Although her family's native place was Hangchow, Chekiang, Wu Yi-fang was born in Wuchang, Hupeh, where her father, Wu Shouhsün (T. Hsiao-ying), was stationed as a Ch'ing government official. She was the third of four children, and she received her early education at home with her elder brother. In 1904, at the age of 1 1 sui, she accompanied her elder sister to Hangchow, where they enrolled at a newly established girls school. Two years later, they went to Shanghai and enrolled at the Morning Star School, a Catholic institution for non-Christian pupils, but they returned home after only one term to study English and mathematics with a private tutor. In the spring of 1908 they entered the Laura Haygood Girls School, a Methodist institution at Soochow, but they returned home in 1910 when their father died. The family then moved to Hangchow. At the time of the revolution in 1911 they joined some relatives in Shanghai. Wu Yifang's elder brother died suddenly, and her mother and elder sister died about a month later. Wu Yi-fang and her ten-year-old sister went to Hangchow to live with the family of her maternal aunt. In 1913 she attended the Hangchow Union Girls School as a special student. The following year, her aunt and uncle moved to Peking, and Wu taught at the Girls Normal School. In 1915 they went to Shanghai, and in February 1916 Wu enrolled at Ginling College, at Nanking, thus becoming a member of the first class at the first college for women in China.

At Ginling, Wu Yi-fang became a convert to Christianity and joined the Methodist Church in 1918. She was graduated in 1919 and was offered an assistantship at Ginling, but she declined the offer to become head of the English department at the Peking Higher Normal School for Girls. She remained there until 1922, when she was awarded a Barbour scholarship for study at the University of Michigan. She received an M.S. in biology in 1924 and a Ph.D. in 1928; her dissertation was entitled "A Contribution to the Biology of Simulium." During this period she also served as chairman of the Chinese Student Christian Association in the United States (1924-25) and as vice chairman of the Chinese Student Alliance in North America (1925-26). Wu Yi-fang returned to China in 1928 to become president of Ginling College. She was the first Chinese woman to hold a college presidency. In the next nine years the campus and the curriculum were enlarged, and the enrollment was doubled. Wu proved herself a capable administrator and a determined and resourceful educator. She also became increasingly involved in international good-will and national Christian work. She served as chairman of the National Christian Council in China in 1935 and in 1938-48, and she was a Chinese delegate to the Institute of Pacific Relations conferences in the United States in 1929, 1931, and 1933. Also in 1933 she was a delegate to the International Congress of Women and the United Foreign Missions Conference in the United States and to the meeting of the International Missionary Council in England. In 1936 she represented Ginling at the Harvard tercentenary celebrations.

After the Sino-Japanese war began in July 1937, Ginling College was forced to close. Temporary arrangements were made for students to study in other Chinese cities. In 1938 Wu Yi-fang collaborated wih Madame Chiang Kai-shek (Soong Mei-ling, q.v.) in founding the women's advisory committee of the New Life Movement, which coordinated women's activities and assisted war orphans. When the National Government moved to Chungking, Wu reopened Ginling on the West China Union University campus in Chengtu, which Ginling shared with three other refugee colleges throughout the war. Despite difficult wartime conditions, the student body grew to 300. The students put their studies to practical use by setting up nutrition, sanitation, and child care projects in Szechwan. A record of the war years in west China, China Rediscovers Her West, was published in 1940. Wu edited this symposium with the American Presbyterian missionary Frank W. Price and wrote one of its chapters, "Women in the War." In 1938 Wu Yi-fang was appointed to the People's Political Council at Chungking, and in 1941, when Chou En-lai (q.v.) withdrew, she was elected to its five-member presidium. In December 1938 she led China's delegation to the International Missionary Council Assembly at Madras, India, and she was elected vice chairman of the International Missionary Council. She visited the United States late in 1942 as the only woman member of an educational mission studying international relations and postwar reconstruction. Before her return to China in 1943, she was awarded an honorary LL.D. degree by Smith College, which for many years had helped support Ginling College. Throughout the war years, she sat on advisory boards, conferred with Szechwan government officials, and received a steady procession of government officials and war committee workers who sought her advice and support for their projects.

Wu Yi-fang was the only woman member of the Chinese delegation to the United Nations Conference on International Organization at San Francisco in 1945. While in California, she received honorary degrees from Mills College and the University of Southern California. Upon her return to China, she undertook the onerous task of moving Ginling College back to its Nanking campus. In 1946 she was a member of the National Assembly, which met to draw up a constitution. As the Nationalist- Communist civil war increased in intensity, student unrest in Nanking mounted. Wu urged her students to attend to their studies and did all that she could to keep Ginling running smoothly. When the Chinese Communist forces occupied Nanking in April 1949, Wu formed a Nanking citizens' protection committee to maintain order during the transfer of power. Although many Chinese and Western friends urged her to leave the mainland, she refused to abandon Ginling and chose to remain in Nanking.

In September 1949 Wu Yi-fang attended the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference at Peiping. After the Central People's Government was established, she was named to the editorial board of the English-language periodical China Reconstructs. Upon her return to Nanking she began working to change the curriculum and the administrative organization of Ginling so that the new regime would accept the college. Ginling operated much as it always had until 1952, when the Peking authorities decided to combine it with the University of Nanking to form National Ginling University. Wu was appointed vice president of the new institution. In 1956 she became vice chairman of the National Christian Council, vice president of Nanking Normal College, and commissioner of education for Kiangsu province. The following February, she was appointed vice chairman of the Kiangsu provincial government. In September 1957 she received an additional appointment as an executive committee member of the Women's Federation of the People's Republic of China. She also served as a delegate to the first and second National People's congresses and as a delegate to conferences abroad, including the World Peace Conference in Finland in 1955 and the Fourth Congress of the International Federation of Democratic Women in Vienna in 1958.

Throughout her career Wu Yi-fang played a leading role in improving the lot of Chinese women. She consistently upheld the rights of her sex, saying that "if a Chinese woman is well trained and qualified, she may compete equally with men for any position from the highest government office down. Only as women become educated can we expect them to step into their places as leaders." Wu's work as an outstanding educator, stateswoman, and Christian leader provided many new opportunities for Chinese women.