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For first-year student Steve Jia and a group of fellow students, their burgeoning education as global leaders became very real on May 12 when an earthquake struck Sichuan, the most heavily populated province in China. “In this situation, we really put what we learned at the GSB into action,” said Jia, co-chair of the Greater China Club. “As we have heard in the classroom, we had to assume social responsibility for the future.”
Students quickly sprang into action, organizing a fundraising campaign for the victims of the natural disaster. Within four days, they scheduled a massive collection at the upcoming Liquidity Preference Function (LPF) social event at Harper Center and continued their efforts the following day at Gleacher Center and outside the Kovler Café at Harper Center the following week. Overall, some 140 people donated $14,000 the GSB will forward to the China Red Cross.
“The whole thing happened so fast,” Jia said. “The Chinese community was very impressed with the school’s support and the humanity of our fellow classmates.”
Initially, even Jia and fellow Chinese students did not realize how large the quake was, he said. As news spread, school officials offered to help students respond and provided a lecture room for an organizational meeting, Jia said. “So many people were worried about this issue, we thought it might be good to coordinate our efforts,” he said. “We realized we should not dominate this thing. We wanted to hear what everybody was thinking.”
First-year student Alex Zhang, another co-chair of the Greater China Club, agreed. “We wanted to do whatever we could to help these people,” he said. “Our time was very limited, but we got a lot of support from the school. The [student-led] Graduate Business Council responded very quickly so we could start to organize as soon as possible. The faculty and administration were very supportive.”
Students divided into groups to publicize the effort and to organize details. Chicago’s Chinese community provided small gifts for donors, while students met everyday at lunch to discuss logistics, Jia said. Additional gifts were transported from Gleacher Center in downtown Chicago to Harper Center in Hyde Park for the May 16 LPF, he said. Despite competition from the annual Management Conference the same day, the LPF brought in more than $8,000, Jia said.
“It was not just Chinese people who volunteered to help us,” Zhang said. “There were English students, American students — people from many countries. They not only contributed money, they also helped organize the fundraising.”
Nonetheless, many Chinese students were deeply affected by the tragedy. They feel more responsibility because as students, they shoulder the country’s hope, Jia said. “We would feel very strange or badly if we didn’t do anything.”
Although no relatives or friends of members of the GSB community were injured, the earthquake changed the lives of many young students, he said. “We pay a lot of money for tuition here and not everybody can afford it,” Jia said. “We’re eating well in such a nice cafeteria, while other people are still buried under their houses. It’s a little bit like 9/11 in the United States. It made people realize the importance of family. I realized there was so much I could do to help, other than worry about my career. That was important and critical for us.”
—Phil Rockrohr