A Hong Kong family's unprecedented donation to storied Harvard University has prompted the US school to make the unusual gesture of renaming its School of Public Health after a person, the university said Monday.
The 350-million-dollar donation, the largest ever in the history of the nearly 400-year-old university, comes from a foundation started by T.H. Chan, who founded the Hang Lung Group, a major developer of real estate in Hong Kong and mainland China.
The school, located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, near Boston, will eventually be called the T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
The only other school at Harvard named after a person is the John F Kennedy School of Government, a tribute to the late US president who graduated from Harvard and was assassinated in 1963.
Chan's son, Gerald Chan, earned both his master's and doctorate at Harvard's School of Public Health in the 1970s, and along with his family runs the Massachusetts-based Morningside Foundation that channelled the donation.
In broadcast remarks, he said his father was a staunch supporter of education who used to loan money to Hong Kong families to send their children to school.
"My father grew up in turbulent times in China, and became unfailingly committed in enabling others to be educated," Chan said at the ceremony that announced the gift.
He recalled that his mother, who was in the audience, had been trained as a registered nurse by the British in northern China in the 1940s.
"Her medical training rendered my mother rather paranoid about hygiene as a means of disease prevention," Gerald Chan said, to laughter from the audience.
She had the habit of carrying a steel container "packed with ethanol-soaked cotton" to restaurants when the family ate out, and would wipe down the bowls, plates and chopsticks after food had been ordered.
"I remember being embarrassed by the practice of on-the-spot sterilization," he said.
In another story, he described how his mother performed vaccinations at home for the neighbourhood children, repeatedly sterilizing the one glass hypodermic needle she had.
After some time, the "needle got blunted," he said. "No wonder many children screamed and wailed in our kitchen."
Chan noted that it was the growing use of vaccines and hygiene that gave rise to the largest increase in life expectancy in human history during the 20th century, a tribute to the effect of public health work.
He said the donation was the natural outgrowth of his "mother's commitment to improving people's health and father's commitment to education."
Hong Kong family donates $350 million (R3.7 billion) to Harvard University
A Hong Kong family's unprecedented donation to storied Harvard University has prompted the US school to make the unusual gesture of renaming its School of Public Health after a person, the university said Monday.
The 350-million-dollar donation, the largest ever in the history of the nearly 400-year-old university, comes from a foundation started by T.H. Chan, who founded the Hang Lung Group, a major developer of real estate in Hong Kong and mainland China.
The school, located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, near Boston, will eventually be called the T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
The only other school at Harvard named after a person is the John F Kennedy School of Government, a tribute to the late US president who graduated from Harvard and was assassinated in 1963.
Chan's son, Gerald Chan, earned both his master's and doctorate at Harvard's School of Public Health in the 1970s, and along with his family runs the Massachusetts-based Morningside Foundation that channelled the donation.
In broadcast remarks, he said his father was a staunch supporter of education who used to loan money to Hong Kong families to send their children to school.
"My father grew up in turbulent times in China, and became unfailingly committed in enabling others to be educated," Chan said at the ceremony that announced the gift.
He recalled that his mother, who was in the audience, had been trained as a registered nurse by the British in northern China in the 1940s.
"Her medical training rendered my mother rather paranoid about hygiene as a means of disease prevention," Gerald Chan said, to laughter from the audience.
She had the habit of carrying a steel container "packed with ethanol-soaked cotton" to restaurants when the family ate out, and would wipe down the bowls, plates and chopsticks after food had been ordered.
"I remember being embarrassed by the practice of on-the-spot sterilization," he said.
In another story, he described how his mother performed vaccinations at home for the neighbourhood children, repeatedly sterilizing the one glass hypodermic needle she had.
After some time, the "needle got blunted," he said. "No wonder many children screamed and wailed in our kitchen."
Chan noted that it was the growing use of vaccines and hygiene that gave rise to the largest increase in life expectancy in human history during the 20th century, a tribute to the effect of public health work.
He said the donation was the natural outgrowth of his "mother's commitment to improving people's health and father's commitment to education."
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