Dr. John Wilde grew up on Chicago’s South Side and graduated from William Rainey Harper high school where he had a keen awareness of politics and social welfare. Because of the relentless urgings of his school’s guidance counselor, he abandoned plans to go to barber school upon graduation and chose to attend the nearby Kennedy-King Community College of Chicago. Two years later, he transferred to Northern Illinois University where he obtained a B.A. in Education. After being a teacher at three public school districts, he successfully completed an M.A. in Communications and then a Ph.D. in Education from Southern Illinois University – Carbondale. In his doctoral studies, he focused on rehabilitation counseling and educational psychology.

His early exposure to a world filled with social inequities and a realization of the need for activism instilled in him the importance of improving the lives of people with disabilities. It certainly laid the foundation for the commitment he has today in the area of higher education and systems change. He has an undisputed record of working to improve the quality of life of those seeking to break from the status quo. In the 80’s, he became one of the first volunteer counselors for patients with AIDS at a United States Army hospital.

Dr. Wilde joined the faculty at City College of San Francisco in 1991. Prior to his appointment there as professor and counselor for students with disabilities, he was a professor at University of Missouri and then at State University of New York where, at both of these institutions of higher learning, he gained the reputation as a strategizing innovator and non-stop advocate.

During his tenure at City College of San Francisco, Dr. Wilde has established a reputation as a pacesetter. He has created new courses, written textbooks on the rights of people with disabilities, and authored the recently published The Disability Journey which addresses living and coping with disabilities. He has worked to increase college enrollment of monolingual Chinese students with disabilities, developed pioneering online classes in disabilities, advised educational institutions on disability accessibility, participated in state-wide student advocacy initiatives, offered trainings at national and international forums, and created ground-breaking outreach approaches for post-secondary students.

He launched the first mentorship program for students with disabilities at City College of San Francisco. He initiated the first California academic success response plan for returning Afghanistan and Iraq War vets. He is the one responsible for setting off the national move to post signs and labels warning of the dangers of drinking alcohol during pregnancy that are now seen throughout the USA. Currently, he is working with officials from around the country to introduce an Employment Assistance Program (EAP) at City College of San Francisco.

Dr. Wilde has presided as president of the San Francisco Mayor’s Disability Council, testified as an expert witness in a widely influential disability discrimination federal court case, and has been a member of the Board of Directors of the Golden Gate Regional Center, Goodwill Industries, and the Independent Living Resource Center of San Francisco.

Professor Wilde has worked for systems change. He has been a consultant to the United Nations, the United States Department of Defense, the United States Bureau of Indian Affairs, the United States Food and Drug Administration, Compaq Computers, BASF Chemicals of China, National Cash Register (NCR), Beijing Foreign Enterprise Service Group, San Francisco Police Department, California Youth Authority, Job Corps, California Department of Rehabilitation and other public and private institutions throughout the United States. He also testified before the Senate Subcommittee on Aging to highlight problems within the pension industry.

Having studied Chinese at the Beijing Language and Cultural University for a total of two years, he wrote American Culture: A Coursebook, in China for college students wanting a textbook to help better understand American lifestyles. Further, in China he has offered training to mental health professionals, has been an invited guest speaker by the China Disabled Person Federation, and he is currently working with six other researchers on a writing project to plan improvement of the lives of people with disabilities in China. In 2001, he conducted an extensive study for the United Nations where he compared China’s disability laws with those of the USA. See Comparative Study of Disability Laws in China and the USA. He also guided City College of San Francisco in starting its first Study Abroad Program in Beijing in 2007.

Throughout his career, Dr Wilde’s motto has been, “Never give up.”