Taking Ownership of a Global University

The University’s integrated community of students, faculty and staff make up the spirit that drove NUS to where it is today, a global university with a 100-year-old proud heritage. Many continue to engage with their alma mater long after they have left the University’s portals. Their contributions and commitment, together with those of the University’s friends and well-wishers, will fuel the next lap of NUS’ growth. Below are some examples of those who have in the year taken the lead in investing in the University’s future and in tertiary education in Singapore.

Dr William Tan, an alumnus, completed 10 marathons on seven continents in 70 days on his wheelchair to raise $1.5 million for a Professorship in Paediatric Oncology at the University. In the process, he became the first person to undertake a wheelchair push in Antarctica as well as beat the existing Guinness World Record held by an able-bodied man.

The Class of '72 in a celebratory bash at Bukit Timah campus raised over $400,000 from the event. Matched by a dollar-for-dollar top-up from the government, their contributions were sufficient to set up an endowment fund for 35 bursaries.

Intangible ties that cement stakeholders to the University continued to be strong with the community participating actively in events that form part of the University’s calendar year. The year’s Rag and Flag Day was a success involving more than 5,500 freshmen and halls continued to build up strong feelings of esprit de corps with hall-specific traditions.

The Lee Foundation made its largest donation to the University in the year with a $30 million gift. The funds will go towards the set up of the Alice Lee Centre for Nursing Studies which will offer a three-year nursing degree programme, the Lee Kong Chian Scholarships to attract local and global talents to NUS, and two Lee Kong Chian Centennial Professorships.

Professor Saw Swee Hock, a member of the University’s Council and former NUS Professor of Statistics, donated $2.6 million to the Faculty of Medicine to endow the Saw Swee Hock Centennial Professorship in Medical Sciences.

The Yong Loo Lin Trust made the largest single gift by a private donor to a Singapore tertiary institution with a donation of $100 million to the Faculty of Medicine. The gift, compounded by the government’s dollar-for-dollar matching, will make up a $200-million fund which will give the Faculty the resources to take a quantum leap from being a leading medical school in Asia to one that is comparable with the best in the world. The Faculty has chosen to rename itself the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine in recognition of its donor’s visionary beneficence.