Addressing Educational Inequity in Western Hunan
Doug Murray Fund
Doug Murray with New Asia College President and Confucian scholar Ch’ien Mu, Hong Kong, 1959
The Doug Murray Fund
In honor of Douglas Patterson Murray, Jr.’s role as a champion for U.S.-China engagement and exchange, and his countless contributions to promoting education and understanding between the United States and Asia, the Yale-China Association has established the Doug Murray Fund. Doug’s introduction to Asia was through a Yale-China teaching fellowship at New Asia College, now a constituent college of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, from 1958 to 1960. He later wrote that the experience had “unquestionably… the single most important impact on my personal and professional life. Fair to say that everything since Hong Kong has been a trajectory from the Yale-China experience.” He continued to be involved with Yale-China as an adviser and member of the board of trustees for the rest of his life. Doug passed away on April 19, 2020 in New York City.
Past to Present: The Yuanling site has historical significance as the last foreigners who taught there were also Yale-China staff during World War II.
Purpose
Yale-China invites contributions to the Doug Murray Fund to expand the Yale-China Fellows Program to send recent Yale graduates to teach in under-served schools in China’s mountainous Western Hunan region. This program builds on Yale-China’s Rural Education Pilot Project which placed two Fellows at high schools in Yuanling, in Western Hunan, where they were the only native-speaking teachers of English last year.
Partners and Location
The project will be run in partnership with the Wispring Foundation 湖南弘慧教育发展基金会, a Chinese NGO with over ten years of experience supporting students and schools in this relatively poor region of China. The Yuanling site has historical significance: the last foreigners who taught there were Yale-China staff during World War II.
Impact
The expansion of the Yale-China Fellowship takes place when opportunities for young Americans to gain direct experience in China are increasingly rare—due to the closure of the Peace Corps and other teaching programs in China—and when the need for mutual respect and understanding between our two peoples is more urgent than ever.
Donations are needed this spring to support two Fellows already selected to start their programs in Fall 2020 and to build a designated fund to support future fellows engaged in rural education. Schools in Yuanling have reopened and are eager for Fellows to return. We expect the first $50,000 in contributions to be matched by anonymous donors, and possible foundation support.
Updates
June 2020: Board Resolution for Doug Murray Fund
September 2020: Update Letter to Donors and Friends
Donate online or make your donation by check.
Please make checks payable to “The Yale-China Association, Incorporated,” write “Doug Murray Fund” in the memo line, and mail to the following address:
Yale-China Association
Box 6023
Hamden, CT 06517