Stanford Leading Matters vs CMU Inspire Innovation
In a fairly short time span, I was able to attend two alumni events of both my alma maters, without having to travel far as both were held in Singapore. Both came to the alumni for giving obviously, reinforcing their global status and the need for alumni to give to help in rankings and endowment. Both included lecture, dinner and lots of mingling and catching up with friends, as well as get to know some luminaries and alumni office people.
Stanford’s Leading Matters was held at Shangri-la, costs $50 for young alumni (I think $100 for older.. must go back to school at 10th year..) and was a half day affair on Saturday with a panel introduction and two long lectures on (surprise surprise) the 3 major focus areas for Singapore research: water, biotech and media (to a certain extent). The Stanford Club of Singapore did a lot of work as this is a major event that travels the world, and this year they play hosts. There was some impressive parts, like an almost 10 meter long screen on stage that has 2 specially crafted video created for that form factor (while SSO accompanies the dinner “virtually” in the screen). But the table setting made it too much like a wedding dinner.
CMU’s Inspire Innovation was held at Raffles Town Club, costs nothing and was a short Wednesday evening, graced by the President of the university Jared Cohon (who comes pretty often!), and had only a short panel discussion and a short video. It was short and sharp, mostly discussing the financial crisis (maybe coz an OCBC Senior EVP was on stage) but lot of frank pleading by Jared for donations.
Free picture taken during cocktail, found a colleague!
Perhaps President Cohon’s speech best summarized the conundrum faced by these universities when they come out to Asia. The Americans have a long tradition of giving to universities. The universities budget their expenditure based on some level of expectation of endowment. Asians on the other hand do not have that tradition and expect their educational institutions to be supported by the government and tuition fees. Of course the NSFs and the US government also help these universities in one way or another, it’s just not enough to sustain their “business model”. He also aptly described the mentality of foreigners: why support the US universities? Wouldn’t it be the Americans’ philanthropy who would play that role?
IMHO, as these major research universities become more global, they have 2 choices, change their business model, or track their global alumni footprint and go change their mindset. Although we see the later, I would think that the administrators would start tweaking the way universities are operated. At the same time, I don’t really agree with the culture of not giving, perhaps it’s just the magnitude of giving and the ease of giving and the acknowledgment of giving that’s not really matched. My proud dad was in Kuala Kangsar over Chinese New Year hunting down where his name is coz he has just pledged about RM10K to his primary school along with a few dozen others. Being a “big donor” for its scale, he was well acknowledged on many notice boards plastered all around the small town. If I were to put down RM10K for CMU/Stanford, it would be so small that I would probably be acknowledged on a grass on the cut. Which is why my RM10K is not with the research universities but other local organizations or even my own social projects.
But still, there’s opportunity to give and help – as president Cohon pointed out, the US rankings includes the percentage of alumni giving, not the amount collected. CMU ranks very well here (maybe because the denominator is small kekeke).
Would you donate to your alma mater even when they look filthy rich? How about your church? 😛
