On November 5th, the Alumni Relations and Development Workshop was held on the central campus of Shandong University. Kenneth Manotti , Vice President of the University of Chicago for Alumni Relations and Development, Damon Cates, Associate Vice President of the University of Chicago for Alumni Relations and Annual Giving, Zuo Chengci, Assistant to the President of Nanjing University, and others attended the workshop. The Chief Accountant of Shandong University Cao Yuansheng delivered the opening speech at the ceremony.
Cao said that higher education needs large amounts of capital input. Expanding revenue sources and strengthening fund-raising abilities are essential to the long-term growth of a university. Foreign universities have a lot of experience in this regard, especially the universities in the U.S. By comparison, Chinese universities still have a long way to go. The model of the University of Chicago and the experience of other Chinese universities are all valuable lessons for SDU.
The workshop was filled with speeches and discussions. Kenneth Manotti and Damon Cates addressed the workshop on behalf of the U.S. universities, while Zuo Chengci and Wang Fei, the Director of SDU Department of Cooperation and Development, addressed the workshop on behalf of the Chinese universities.
Kenneth Manotti raised some important suggestion to improve fund raising in Chinese universities. He talked about a strategy of fund raising and effective ways to maintain good relationships among alumni, and concluded by summing up his own experience in his work and revealing that the keys to fund raising are accurate judgment of the fund raiser, the careful design of the fund-raising project, excellent skills in negotiation and the timely seizing of opportunities. Damon Cates emphasized on the framework of alumni and fund raising at the University of Chicago, the recent condition of donations from the alumni, the future goal and other issues, providing a lot of first-hand information for the Chinese universities to learn from.
Zuo Chengci analyzed the difficulties confronting Chinese universities in fund raising and offered some of his own suggestions.Wang Fei took the work of fund raising in SDU as an example and raised the new idea of promoting the specialization of fund raising and the enrichment of alumni-culture.
After the speeches, all the representatives actively exchanged their opinions and raised their own questions to the speakers. The discussion during the workshop covered such issues as the difference and common ground between the work of alumni and fund raising in China and the U.S., the exploration and innovation of Chinese universities in this regard and so on. The workshop had much lively discussion.
This workshop was jointly hosted by Shandong University and the University of Chicago and serves as the 3rd event in the series on building the capacity for international cooperation and development of SDU. Over 100 representatives from China and the U.S. attended the workshop including representatives from SDU in charge of the work related to alumni, representatives from universities outside Shandong province such as Chongqing University, Fanghui, Director of SDU Department of Personnel, Kong Lingdong, Director of SDU Department of Development and Planning, Zounan, Director of SDU Department of International Affairs, Tong Guangwu ,SDU general counsel of international exchanges, Liu Xuexiang , Vice Director of SDU Department of Cooperation and Development, and others.
Written by: Zheng Zhipeng
Photo by: Yu Youbing
Edited by: Ben Hammer, Jing Zizhao