02/20/2026
The National Consortium for Teaching about Asia lost a valued colleague and friend with the passing of Linda Wojtan on February 9, 2026. Linda’s contributions to NCTA began in our inaugural year, 1998, when she led the first of many annual “classic” NCTA seminars in Nebraska. In our early years, Linda contributed to designing our seminar models and syllabi. She was a regular presenter at NCTA sessions at the National Council for the Social Studies, as well as NCSS regional and state conferences. Well before social media, Linda served as NCTA’s “Visibility Coordinator” between 2006-2015, helping ensure that NCTA’s work reached teachers who could most benefit from it.
Linda’s impact on K-12 Asian studies education began decades before NCTA. It’s no exaggeration to say that her work in the 1980s and 1990s paved the way for a national program such as NCTA. In the early 1980s, as the coordinator of the Midwest Japan-in-the Schools Project, Linda was helping shape a new kind of area studies “outreach,” conducting workshops, writing curriculum, and connecting teachers with much-needed resources. For years she led the Keizai Koho Center teacher study tours to Japan and coordinated the US-Japan Foundation Precollegiate Japan Projects Network. Through hundreds of workshops and presentations over 35 years, until her retirement in 2015, Linda motivated thousands of K-12 educators. She collaborated with other specialists and mentored those entering the field. Many of our NCTA directors, past and present, have favorite stories of Linda’s kindness, advice and encouragement as we joined the Consortium. For her colleagues, Linda’s expertise, generosity, and signature humor made her a privilege to work with.
We send our deepest condolences to Linda’s family. The loss of Linda will be deeply felt by all who knew and worked with her. Linda’s contributions to Asian studies education are immeasurable.
