J.P. Shen should have graduated from Tsing Hua in 1921, but that year he joined a group of classmates to support a faculty walkout over owed backpay. Shen and his friends boycotted their final exams and therefore were held back for a year. As a result, only in summer 1922 did Shen arrive at Grinnell College together with fellow Tsing Hua alumni T. H. Cheng, S. Y. Liu, and K. C. Tsai. 

At Grinnell Shen participated in activities organized by the Chinese students, such as their celebration of the founding of the Republic of China in October 1922 (Liu 195). However, Shen was a quiet student in general. His fellow Tsing Hua alum K. C. Tsai described him as “calm and self-contained,” “rarely uttering a word.” Or, as a local Grinnell newspaper put it, he was “a man of few words but lots of action” (GH 06/17/1924). Also, according to Tsai, Shen was a music lover who played the violin, but out of modesty he was unwilling to perform in public. Interestingly, Shen enjoyed driving to the countryside whenever the weather permitted (Tsai 666). For instance, he once visited Newton, Iowa with fellow Chinese student H.H. Yang (GH 04/04/1924). Shen graduated from Grinnell with a bachelor’s degree in sociology and education in 1924. 

After Grinnell Shen went to Columbia University in New York. There he joined the reunion dinner of Grinnellians to see off Sin Chen, who attended Grinnell in Fall 1923 but transferred to Columbia after one semester (SB 03/25/1925). Shen earned a master’s degree in education from the Teachers’ College, Columbia University in 1926 and returned to China shortly thereafter. By 1929 he had begun working for the Bank of China in Beijing, and apparently continued this work until 1937, when the full-scale Second Sino-Japanese War erupted. In 1947 he was working for Bank of China’s Tianjin branch. We do not know when Shen passed away.