Changes to Board of Trustees at Lingnan Foundation

The Lingnan Foundation announces several changes to its Board of Trustees. The Board recently appointed Chi-Chao Chan as Vice Chair and Leighton Chan as Secretary – joining Chair Chui L. Tsang and Treasurer Alex Banker to the executive team. The Lingnan Board also unanimously approved three new trustees: Lynn Pasquerella, Alice Lau and Denzil Suite while thanking Helena Kolenda for her 13 years of service as Trustee.

At their May 2nd, 2017 meeting in New York City, Helena Kolenda stepped down as Trustee of the Lingnan Foundation. Dr. Chui L. Tsang, Chair, Lingnan Foundation, says “We will greatly miss Helena’s contributions to the Board. She brought a wealth of knowledge about Asia from her work as Program Director for Asia at the Henry Luce Foundation. Her institutional memory about Lingnan Foundation will be hard to replace.”

Ms. Kolenda said at her farewell ceremony “Being a trustee for the Lingnan Foundation has been a privilege for me both professionally and personally. I will miss working with my colleagues on the Board and look forward to watching the Foundation’s continued progress from afar.”

Also at their May 2nd meeting, the Lingnan Foundation Board unanimously approved the appointment of Dr. Denzil Suite, Vice President for Student Life at the University of Washington, as its newest Trustee. Dr. Suite joined the University of Washington (UW) in July 2013. In that capacity, he provides leadership and direction for strategic planning, assessment, and staff development for a comprehensive division of student programs and services. He leads a team of approximately 1,000 professionals in creating and maintaining a healthy campus environment through services, programs, and innovative learning experiences beyond the classroom, and through a highly collaborative relationship with other senior UW leaders.

Lingnan Foundation Chair Tsang noted Dr. Suite’s experience working in China at Peking University where he was a seminar instructor on the history of student affairs in the United States. Tsang says “It will be good to have Denzil’s experience and perspective in student affairs as we work with our university partners in China and Hong Kong.”

Of his appointment, Dr. Suite said “The mission of the Lingnan Foundation is personally important to me and I am honored to have been selected as the newest member of the team.”

Prior to joining UW, he served as Associate Vice President of Student Affairs at the University of Southern California where he had oversight responsibilities for over 20 departments in the division. He also served and as an Associate Professor for Clinical Education at the USC Rossier School of Education. He taught master’s level courses on Student Development, the History of Higher Education, and on Intervention Strategies.

Suite earned his bachelor’s degree in Psychology at The Ohio State University, a master’s degree in Education from the University of Vermont, and a Ph.D. in Policy and Organization from the University of Southern California. His research for his doctorate centered on factors affecting student success in college. He is especially interested in how students from differing backgrounds are affected by the college environment. He chose this topic because of his long-standing commitment to college students and their success.

Dr. Suite has worked professionally in student affairs for over 20 years and has held positions of responsibility at UC Berkeley, Cal State L.A., and UC Santa Cruz. He is the recipient of numerous awards from national, local, and student organizations. Among his many professional endeavors, he currently serves on the Board of Directors for the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators and as an accreditation reviewer for the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities.

The Lingnan Board also welcomed, during their May 2nd meeting, Ms. Alice Lau, Founder and Chairwoman, Guangdong Harmony Community Foundation, to her first Lingnan Board meeting as trustee, having been appointed unanimously by virtual vote in March 2017.

“We are delighted that Alice has accepted the appointment. She is unique in that she brings expertise from a range of fields: business, philanthropy and academia”, says Chair Tsang.

With rich experience in corporate philanthropy, Alice Lau founded Guangdong Harmony Community Foundation, a grantmaking private foundation in the Pearl River Delta, in 2009. Its mission is to support emerging non-profit organizations and to promote innovative community development. It partners with governments, public media and other foundations to support projects that propel the sustainable development of philanthropic innovation in communities.

Formerly she was the Secretary General of the Society of Entrepreneurs and Ecology and SEE Foundation.  She is on the Board of Lions Club International. Ms. Lau has also been Vice President of the China Council of Lions Clubs and Vice President of Guangdong Women’s Association of Entrepreneurs.

Ms. Lau holds a Master of Public Administration and was a 2005 Mason Fellow at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.  She also earned a Masters of Business Administration at Murdoch University in Australia.  She graduated from Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou with a bachelor degree.

“I am looking forward to working with Alice as our newest trustee”, says Dr. Ding-Jo Currie, President of the Lingnan Foundation.  “It will be good to have another trustee local to China.  This along with Alice’s ties to higher education, philanthropy and business ensures we will broaden our perspective.”

At their December 8th, 2016 meeting in Hong Kong, the Lingnan Foundation Board of Trustees unanimously approved the appointment of Dr. Lynn Pasquerella, the president of the Association of American Colleges and Universities and the immediate past president of Mount Holyoke College, as a Lingnan Foundation Trustee.

“We are delighted that Lynn has accepted the appointment. We will value her extensive experience with higher education”, says Dr. Chui L. Tsang, Chair, Lingnan Foundation. “I am sure her insights will greatly contribute to our future discussions.”

Lynn Pasquerella has been president of the Association of American Colleges and Universities since July 2016. A philosopher whose career has combined teaching and scholarship with local and global engagement, she has continuously demonstrated a deep and abiding commitment to ensuring that all students have access to excellence in liberal education, regardless of their socioeconomic background.

Pasquerella is a graduate of Quinebaug Valley Community College, Mount Holyoke College, and Brown University. She joined the faculty of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Rhode Island in 1985, rising rapidly through the ranks to the positions of vice provost for research, vice provost for academic affairs, and dean of the graduate school. In 2008, she was named provost of the University of Hartford. In 2010, she was appointed the eighteenth president of Mount Holyoke College. Pasquerella’s presidency of Mount Holyoke was marked by a robust strategic planning process; outreach to local, regional, and international constituencies; and a commitment to a vibrant campus community.

Pasquerella has written extensively on medical ethics, metaphysics, public policy, and the philosophy of law. She serves as senator and vice president of Phi Beta Kappa, and as host of Northeast Public Radio's The Academic Minute.

The Lingnan Foundation Executive Team

At December 8, 2016 meeting, the Lingnan Board elected Dr. Chi-Chao Chan, Scientist Emerita of the National Eye Institute (NEI), National Institutes of Health (NIH) to Vice-Chair and Dr. Leighton Chan, Senior Scientist and Chief of Rehabilitation Medicine at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center, as Secretary.

“I am looking forward to working with our newest trustees”, says Dr. Ding-Jo Currie, President of the Lingnan Foundation.“With the addition of Dr. Chi-Chao Chan and Dr. Leighton Chan as officers, along with Chair Chui Tsang and Treasurer Alex Banker, we have a very strong executive team on the Board.”

Chui L. Tsang, Ph.D., is the current Chair of the Lingnan Foundation Board of Trustees, and has served on the Board since 2010. Dr. Tsang recently retired from the presidency of Santa Monica College, a California college which enrolls about 35,000 students. Under his nine-plus years of steady leadership the school was able to navigate several severe unstable State funding cutbacks. He was credited with the creation of numerous high-demand new majors, including the cutting-edge B.A. degree in Interaction Design, and fostered excellent relations both within the college and with the greater community.

With a Ph.D. in linguistics from Stanford, he has taught at Stanford University, De Anza College, and San Francisco State University, and published in the fields of linguistics, education and workforce training. Previously, he served as president of San Jose City College for nine years. Dr. Tsang grew up in Hong Kong and came to the U.S. after high school graduation to pursue his college education. He lives in the San Francisco area and is active in the local community.

 

Chi-Chao Chan, M.D., has served as Trustee of the Board of the Lingnan Foundation since 2008. Dr. Chan is an American board certified ophthalmologist; a Scientist Emerita of the National Eye Institute (NEI), National Institutes of Health (NIH), USA; and a Visiting Professor and honorary Director of Zhongshan Ophthalmic Center Research Institute, Sun Yat-sen University (SYSU), China. She studied at Zhongshan Medical College (1961-1967). Dr. Chan received her bachelor (B.A., 1972) and medical doctorate (M.D., 1975) from Johns Hopkins University, completed ophthalmology residency at Stanford University Medical Center (1976-1979) and two post-doctoral fellowships: ophthalmic pathology at the Wilmer Eye Institute (1979-1982) and uveitis at NEI (1982-1987). She then served as the Head of Immunopathology Section in the Laboratory of Immunology and the Chief of Histopathology Core at NEI. Dr. Chan has published more than 660 papers in SCI journals, 56 book chapters, and two books. She is on the editorial board of 22 journals. Her work has uncovered various aspects of uveitis (molecular, clinical pathology and immunopathology), primary vitreoretinal lymphoma (diagnosis) and age-related macular degeneration (molecular pathology and mouse model).

Alex Banker has served as Trustee of the Board of the Lingnan Foundation since 2003 and is currently the Treasurer. He is a Director of Investments at the Yale University Investment Office, where he oversees risk management and capital markets activities. Prior to working at Yale, Mr. Banker was a senior manager at Coopers & Lybrand in Boston. He also served as executive assistant to Bill Moyers at Public Affairs Television and as the senior producer for several radio news interview programs on WOR-AM in New York. Mr. Banker serves as Treasurer of the Hopkins School and chairs the investment committee of Middlesex School. He received a Bachelor of Arts in American Studies from Trinity College in 1983 and an M.B.A. from Harvard University in 1991.

Leighton Chan, M.D., has served as Trustee of the Board of the Lingnan Foundation since 2015. Dr. Chan is currently a tenured senior scientist and Chief of Rehabilitation Medicine at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center, a 200 bed research hospital on the NIH campus. He received his B.A. degree from Dartmouth College and his M.D. degree from the UCLA School of Medicine. He received residency training in PM&R at the University of Washington. Subsequently, he completed a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholar Fellowship, earned an M.P.H. at the University of Washington School of Public Health and was a Congressional Fellow for the Honorable Jim McDermott (Washington).

Dr. Chan has concentrated his research efforts on studying the health care and social services provided to individuals with disabilities. Over the course of his career, he has published several landmark studies examining the impact of disability on access to health care. His research has resulted in more than 100 peer reviewed articles, including 10 in JAMA, Lancet and NEJM. Dr. Chan’s awards include the Young Academician Award from the Association of Academic Physiatrists, two outstanding teacher awards from the University of Washington School of Medicine and four NIH Director’s Awards. He is currently the Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Archives of PM&R. In 2007, he was elected to the Institute of Medicine (National Academy of Medicine).