{"id":120206,"date":"2012-10-12T18:16:05","date_gmt":"2012-10-12T22:16:05","guid":{"rendered":"\/gazette\/?p=120206"},"modified":"2012-10-12T18:16:05","modified_gmt":"2012-10-12T22:16:05","slug":"chao-family-gives-40-million-to-hbs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/story\/2012\/10\/chao-family-gives-40-million-to-hbs\/","title":{"rendered":"Chao family gives $40 million to HBS"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\t\n\t
\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\tCampus & Community\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\n\t\t

\n\t\tChao family gives $40 million to HBS\t<\/h1>\n\n\t\n\t\n\t
\n\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t

\n\t\tKatie Koch\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t

\n\t\t\tHarvard Staff Writer\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/address>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t

\n\t\t\tDonation will fund executive education center, endow fellowships in matriarch\u2019s honor\t\t<\/h2>\n\t\t\n<\/header>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\t\t

During the half-century that the Harvard Business School<\/a> (HBS) has admitted women, only the family of James S.C. Chao can claim four daughters among those graduates.<\/p>\n

On Friday, the Chao family announced its intention to honor that legacy \u2014 as well as the life of its late matriarch, Ruth Mulan Chu Chao \u2014 with a $40 million gift to the School to support student fellowships and to build a new executive education center on the Allston campus.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat a wonderful thing to have a building on this campus that is both named for a woman and comes from the gift of four daughters,\u201d said HBS Dean Nitin Nohria during an afternoon press conference at Kresge Hall, which will be razed to make way for the Ruth Mulan Chu Chao Center, set for groundbreaking in 2014. \u201cIt is so symbolic, so wonderful for us to be able to announce this gift in a year in which we\u2019re celebrating 50 years of women graduating from Harvard Business School.\u201d<\/p>\n\r\n\r\n\n

The gift from the James Si-Cheng Chao and Family Foundation will allot $35 million toward construction of the Chao Center. The remaining $5 million will establish the Ruth Mulan Chu and James Si-Cheng Chao Family Fellowship Fund, which will provide financial assistance to deserving students of Chinese heritage.<\/p>\n

The Chaos\u2019 generosity was inspired not just by their personal connections to HBS, but by their mother\u2019s passion for education. A native of China\u2019s Anhui Province who immigrated to the United States from Taiwan with her husband and children, she once said, \u201cThe best dowry for my daughters is education,\u201d and earned her own long-delayed master\u2019s degree in Asian literature and history at 53.<\/p>\n

The gift serves as a reminder of the important role of women at HBS and at Harvard through history, said Harvard President Drew Faust.<\/p>\n

The Chao family represents \u201cgenerations of dedication to what matters most here at Harvard to all of us, and that is the power of education to generate opportunity, to create possibility for everyone in our society, for women as well as men,\u201d Faust said. \u201cThis is, of course, something that the Chao sisters lived here at Harvard Business School \u2026 education that is meant to serve others, education that is meant to build a better world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Members of the Chao family \u2014 among them former U.S. Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, M.B.A. \u201979, and her husband, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. \u2014 were joined by HBS faculty, alumni, and staff, as well as friends of the School and representatives from the city of Boston, to celebrate the gift, one of the largest in HBS history and another boon to the Executive Education Program. (Just outside Kresge\u2019s windows, construction of Tata Hall, which will provide housing for executive education participants, was under way.)<\/p>\n

The Chao Center will serve as a space where the roughly 9,000 professionals who attend Executive Education programs each year can mingle with M.B.A. and doctoral students, said Elaine Chao, speaking on behalf of her father, who also attended.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn an era of internationalization, the Ruth Mulan Chu Chao Center will be a gateway and convening site to the tens of thousands of Executive Education attendees from all over the world,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The center also will help to keep Boston at the forefront of the economy, said Mayor Thomas M. Menino.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt demonstrates the direction that Boston is moving in as we build on our status as a leader in the global economy,\u201d Menino said.<\/p>\n\r\n\t\n\n\t

\"\"
The center also will help to keep Boston at the forefront of the economy, said Mayor Thomas M. Menino (right), pictured with Elaine Chao.\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\t\n\t\r\n\n

James and Ruth met during China\u2019s mid-century upheaval, a period of multiple wars and rapid cultural change, Elaine Chao said. They reunited in Taiwan, where Ruth, the educated daughter of a distinguished family, had moved with relatives seeking safety.<\/p>\n

When James, then a young but already accomplished sea captain, had the chance to go to America, Ruth, then pregnant with their third of six daughters, encouraged him to do so. Three years later, Ruth and the children joined him in New York. James went on to found the international shipping, trading, and finance outfit the Foremost Group, where he remains chairman.<\/p>\n

The couple also established the Mulan Education Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to enhancing U.S.\u2013China relations, which has awarded thousands of scholarships.<\/p>\n

Through the HBS gift, her father plans to continue the legacy of his wife of six decades, who died of lymphoma in 2007, Elaine Chao said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHer spirit of altruism, generosity toward others, and contributing to society are values that he hopes that the best university in the world will instill in the smartest students in the world,\u201d Chao said, \u201cso that our world will have better leaders of principle, conscience, and service to society.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A family that sent four daughters through Harvard Business School \u2014 including former U.S. Labor Secretary Elaine Chao \u2014 visited the School on Friday to announce a $40 million gift that will fund scholarships for students of Chinese heritage and support the building of the Ruth Mulan Chu Chao Center for executive education.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":105622744,"featured_media":120211,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"gz_ga_pageviews":16,"gz_ga_lastupdated":"2021-11-04 03:22","document_color_palette":null,"author":"Katie Koch","affiliation":"Harvard Staff Writer","_category_override":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1364],"tags":[6774,8013,2383,11789,11927,12808,14501,15457,16479,18739,18744,20557,22264,25762,30146,30147,33845],"gazette-formats":[],"series":[],"class_list":["post-120206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus-community","tag-business","tag-china","tag-drew-faust","tag-education","tag-elaine-chao","tag-executive-education","tag-gift","tag-harvard-business-school","tag-hbs-executive-education","tag-james-s-c-chao","tag-james-si-cheng-chao-and-family-foundation","tag-katie-koch","tag-m-b-a-program","tag-nitin-nohria","tag-ruth-mulan-chu-chao","tag-ruth-mulan-chu-chao-center","tag-thomas-m-menino"],"yoast_head":"\nChao family gives $40 million to HBS — Harvard Gazette<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A family that sent four daughters through Harvard Business School \u2014 including former U.S. Labor Secretary Elaine Chao \u2014 visited the School on Friday to announce a $40 million gift that will fund scholarships for students of Chinese heritage and support the building of the Ruth Mulan Chu Chao Center for executive education.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/story\/2012\/10\/chao-family-gives-40-million-to-hbs\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Chao family gives $40 million to HBS — Harvard Gazette\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A family that sent four daughters through Harvard Business School \u2014 including former U.S. Labor Secretary Elaine Chao \u2014 visited the School on Friday to announce a $40 million gift that will fund scholarships for students of Chinese heritage and support the building of the Ruth Mulan Chu Chao Center for executive education.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/story\/2012\/10\/chao-family-gives-40-million-to-hbs\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Harvard Gazette\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-10-12T22:16:05+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/101212_hbs_chao_group_605.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"605\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"403\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"harvardgazette\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/story\/2012\/10\/chao-family-gives-40-million-to-hbs\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/story\/2012\/10\/chao-family-gives-40-million-to-hbs\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"harvardgazette\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/#\/schema\/person\/78d028cf624923e92682268709ffbc4b\"},\"headline\":\"Chao family gives $40 million to HBS\",\"datePublished\":\"2012-10-12T22:16:05+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/story\/2012\/10\/chao-family-gives-40-million-to-hbs\/\"},\"wordCount\":807,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/story\/2012\/10\/chao-family-gives-40-million-to-hbs\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/101212_hbs_chao_group_605.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Business\",\"China\",\"Drew Faust\",\"Education\",\"Elaine Chao\",\"Executive Education\",\"Gift\",\"Harvard Business School\",\"HBS Executive Education\",\"James S.C. 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education center, endow fellowships in matriarch\u2019s honor","className":"is-style-square","backgroundFixed":false,"backgroundTone":"light","centeredImage":false,"coloredBackground":false,"displayOverlay":true,"fadeInText":false,"isAmbient":false,"mediaHeight":0,"mediaLength":"","mediaPosition":"","mediaWidth":0,"posterText":"","titleAbove":false,"useUncroppedImage":false,"lock":[],"metadata":[]},"innerBlocks":[],"innerHTML":"","innerContent":[],"rendered":"<header\n\tclass=\"wp-block-harvard-gazette-article-header alignfull article-header is-style-square has-light-background has-colored-heading\"\n\tstyle=\" \"\n>\n\t\n\t<div class=\"article-header__content\">\n\t\t\t<a\n\t\t\tclass=\"article-header__category\"\n\t\t\thref=\"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/section\/campus-community\/\"\n\t\t>\n\t\t\tCampus & Community\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\n\t\t<h1 class=\"article-header__title wp-block-heading \">\n\t\tChao family gives $40 million to HBS\t<\/h1>\n\n\t\n\t\n\t<div class=\"article-header__meta\">\n\t\t<div class=\"wp-block-post-author\">\n\t\t\t<address class=\"wp-block-post-author__content\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<p class=\"author wp-block-post-author__name\">\n\t\tKatie Koch\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p class=\"wp-block-post-author__byline\">\n\t\t\tHarvard Staff Writer\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/address>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t<time class=\"article-header__date\" datetime=\"2012-10-12\">\n\t\t\tOctober 12, 2012\t\t<\/time>\n\n\t\t<span class=\"article-header__reading-time\">\n\t\t\t5 min read\t\t<\/span>\n\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\n\t\t\t<h2 class=\"article-header__subheading wp-block-heading\">\n\t\t\tDonation will fund executive education center, endow fellowships in matriarch\u2019s honor\t\t<\/h2>\n\t\t\n<\/header>\n"},"2":{"blockName":"core\/group","attrs":{"templateLock":false,"metadata":{"name":"Article content"},"align":"wide","layout":{"type":"constrained","justifyContent":"center"},"tagName":"div","lock":[],"className":"","style":[],"backgroundColor":"","textColor":"","gradient":"","fontSize":"","fontFamily":"","borderColor":"","ariaLabel":"","anchor":""},"innerBlocks":[{"blockName":"core\/freeform","attrs":{"content":"","lock":[],"metadata":[]},"innerBlocks":[],"innerHTML":"\n\t\t<p>During the half-century that the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hbs.edu\/Pages\/default.aspx\">Harvard Business School<\/a> (HBS) has admitted women, only the family of James S.C. Chao can claim four daughters among those graduates.<\/p>\n<p>On Friday, the Chao family announced its intention to honor that legacy \u2014 as well as the life of its late matriarch, Ruth Mulan Chu Chao \u2014 with a $40 million gift to the School to support student fellowships and to build a new executive education center on the Allston campus.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat a wonderful thing to have a building on this campus that is both named for a woman and comes from the gift of four daughters,\u201d said HBS Dean Nitin Nohria during an afternoon press conference at Kresge Hall, which will be razed to make way for the Ruth Mulan Chu Chao Center, set for groundbreaking in 2014. \u201cIt is so symbolic, so wonderful for us to be able to announce this gift in a year in which we\u2019re celebrating 50 years of women graduating from Harvard Business School.\u201d<\/p>\n","innerContent":["\n\t\t<p>During the half-century that the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hbs.edu\/Pages\/default.aspx\">Harvard Business School<\/a> (HBS) has admitted women, only the family of James S.C. Chao can claim four daughters among those graduates.<\/p>\n<p>On Friday, the Chao family announced its intention to honor that legacy \u2014 as well as the life of its late matriarch, Ruth Mulan Chu Chao \u2014 with a $40 million gift to the School to support student fellowships and to build a new executive education center on the Allston campus.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat a wonderful thing to have a building on this campus that is both named for a woman and comes from the gift of four daughters,\u201d said HBS Dean Nitin Nohria during an afternoon press conference at Kresge Hall, which will be razed to make way for the Ruth Mulan Chu Chao Center, set for groundbreaking in 2014. \u201cIt is so symbolic, so wonderful for us to be able to announce this gift in a year in which we\u2019re celebrating 50 years of women graduating from Harvard Business School.\u201d<\/p>\n"],"rendered":"\n\t\t<p>During the half-century that the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hbs.edu\/Pages\/default.aspx\">Harvard Business School<\/a> (HBS) has admitted women, only the family of James S.C. Chao can claim four daughters among those graduates.<\/p>\n<p>On Friday, the Chao family announced its intention to honor that legacy \u2014 as well as the life of its late matriarch, Ruth Mulan Chu Chao \u2014 with a $40 million gift to the School to support student fellowships and to build a new executive education center on the Allston campus.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat a wonderful thing to have a building on this campus that is both named for a woman and comes from the gift of four daughters,\u201d said HBS Dean Nitin Nohria during an afternoon press conference at Kresge Hall, which will be razed to make way for the Ruth Mulan Chu Chao Center, set for groundbreaking in 2014. \u201cIt is so symbolic, so wonderful for us to be able to announce this gift in a year in which we\u2019re celebrating 50 years of women graduating from Harvard Business School.\u201d<\/p>\n"},{"blockName":"core\/freeform","attrs":{"content":"","lock":[],"metadata":[]},"innerBlocks":[],"innerHTML":"\n<p>The gift from the James Si-Cheng Chao and Family Foundation will allot $35 million toward construction of the Chao Center. The remaining $5 million will establish the Ruth Mulan Chu and James Si-Cheng Chao Family Fellowship Fund, which will provide financial assistance to deserving students of Chinese heritage.<\/p>\n<p>The Chaos\u2019 generosity was inspired not just by their personal connections to HBS, but by their mother\u2019s passion for education. A native of China\u2019s Anhui Province who immigrated to the United States from Taiwan with her husband and children, she once said, \u201cThe best dowry for my daughters is education,\u201d and earned her own long-delayed master\u2019s degree in Asian literature and history at 53.<\/p>\n<p>The gift serves as a reminder of the important role of women at HBS and at Harvard through history, said Harvard President Drew Faust.<\/p>\n<p>The Chao family represents \u201cgenerations of dedication to what matters most here at Harvard to all of us, and that is the power of education to generate opportunity, to create possibility for everyone in our society, for women as well as men,\u201d Faust said. \u201cThis is, of course, something that the Chao sisters lived here at Harvard Business School \u2026 education that is meant to serve others, education that is meant to build a better world.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Members of the Chao family \u2014 among them former U.S. Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, M.B.A. \u201979, and her husband, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. \u2014 were joined by HBS faculty, alumni, and staff, as well as friends of the School and representatives from the city of Boston, to celebrate the gift, one of the largest in HBS history and another boon to the Executive Education Program. (Just outside Kresge\u2019s windows, construction of Tata Hall, which will provide housing for executive education participants, was under way.)<\/p>\n<p>The Chao Center will serve as a space where the roughly 9,000 professionals who attend Executive Education programs each year can mingle with M.B.A. and doctoral students, said Elaine Chao, speaking on behalf of her father, who also attended.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn an era of internationalization, the Ruth Mulan Chu Chao Center will be a gateway and convening site to the tens of thousands of Executive Education attendees from all over the world,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>The center also will help to keep Boston at the forefront of the economy, said Mayor Thomas M. Menino.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt demonstrates the direction that Boston is moving in as we build on our status as a leader in the global economy,\u201d Menino said.<\/p>\n","innerContent":["\n<p>The gift from the James Si-Cheng Chao and Family Foundation will allot $35 million toward construction of the Chao Center. The remaining $5 million will establish the Ruth Mulan Chu and James Si-Cheng Chao Family Fellowship Fund, which will provide financial assistance to deserving students of Chinese heritage.<\/p>\n<p>The Chaos\u2019 generosity was inspired not just by their personal connections to HBS, but by their mother\u2019s passion for education. A native of China\u2019s Anhui Province who immigrated to the United States from Taiwan with her husband and children, she once said, \u201cThe best dowry for my daughters is education,\u201d and earned her own long-delayed master\u2019s degree in Asian literature and history at 53.<\/p>\n<p>The gift serves as a reminder of the important role of women at HBS and at Harvard through history, said Harvard President Drew Faust.<\/p>\n<p>The Chao family represents \u201cgenerations of dedication to what matters most here at Harvard to all of us, and that is the power of education to generate opportunity, to create possibility for everyone in our society, for women as well as men,\u201d Faust said. \u201cThis is, of course, something that the Chao sisters lived here at Harvard Business School \u2026 education that is meant to serve others, education that is meant to build a better world.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Members of the Chao family \u2014 among them former U.S. Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, M.B.A. \u201979, and her husband, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. \u2014 were joined by HBS faculty, alumni, and staff, as well as friends of the School and representatives from the city of Boston, to celebrate the gift, one of the largest in HBS history and another boon to the Executive Education Program. (Just outside Kresge\u2019s windows, construction of Tata Hall, which will provide housing for executive education participants, was under way.)<\/p>\n<p>The Chao Center will serve as a space where the roughly 9,000 professionals who attend Executive Education programs each year can mingle with M.B.A. and doctoral students, said Elaine Chao, speaking on behalf of her father, who also attended.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn an era of internationalization, the Ruth Mulan Chu Chao Center will be a gateway and convening site to the tens of thousands of Executive Education attendees from all over the world,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>The center also will help to keep Boston at the forefront of the economy, said Mayor Thomas M. Menino.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt demonstrates the direction that Boston is moving in as we build on our status as a leader in the global economy,\u201d Menino said.<\/p>\n"],"rendered":"\n<p>The gift from the James Si-Cheng Chao and Family Foundation will allot $35 million toward construction of the Chao Center. The remaining $5 million will establish the Ruth Mulan Chu and James Si-Cheng Chao Family Fellowship Fund, which will provide financial assistance to deserving students of Chinese heritage.<\/p>\n<p>The Chaos\u2019 generosity was inspired not just by their personal connections to HBS, but by their mother\u2019s passion for education. A native of China\u2019s Anhui Province who immigrated to the United States from Taiwan with her husband and children, she once said, \u201cThe best dowry for my daughters is education,\u201d and earned her own long-delayed master\u2019s degree in Asian literature and history at 53.<\/p>\n<p>The gift serves as a reminder of the important role of women at HBS and at Harvard through history, said Harvard President Drew Faust.<\/p>\n<p>The Chao family represents \u201cgenerations of dedication to what matters most here at Harvard to all of us, and that is the power of education to generate opportunity, to create possibility for everyone in our society, for women as well as men,\u201d Faust said. \u201cThis is, of course, something that the Chao sisters lived here at Harvard Business School \u2026 education that is meant to serve others, education that is meant to build a better world.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Members of the Chao family \u2014 among them former U.S. Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, M.B.A. \u201979, and her husband, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. \u2014 were joined by HBS faculty, alumni, and staff, as well as friends of the School and representatives from the city of Boston, to celebrate the gift, one of the largest in HBS history and another boon to the Executive Education Program. (Just outside Kresge\u2019s windows, construction of Tata Hall, which will provide housing for executive education participants, was under way.)<\/p>\n<p>The Chao Center will serve as a space where the roughly 9,000 professionals who attend Executive Education programs each year can mingle with M.B.A. and doctoral students, said Elaine Chao, speaking on behalf of her father, who also attended.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn an era of internationalization, the Ruth Mulan Chu Chao Center will be a gateway and convening site to the tens of thousands of Executive Education attendees from all over the world,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>The center also will help to keep Boston at the forefront of the economy, said Mayor Thomas M. Menino.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt demonstrates the direction that Boston is moving in as we build on our status as a leader in the global economy,\u201d Menino said.<\/p>\n"},{"blockName":"core\/image","attrs":{"sizeSlug":"full","align":"none","id":120209,"caption":"The center also will help to keep Boston at the forefront of the economy, said Mayor Thomas M. Menino (right), pictured with Elaine Chao.","blob":"","url":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/101212_hbs_chao_menino_500.jpg","alt":"","lightbox":[],"title":"","href":"","rel":"","linkClass":"","width":"","height":"","aspectRatio":"","scale":"","linkDestination":"","linkTarget":"","lock":[],"metadata":[],"className":"","style":[],"borderColor":"","anchor":""},"innerBlocks":[],"innerHTML":"\n\n\t<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignnone size-full is-resized\"><img src=\"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/101212_hbs_chao_menino_500.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-120209\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">The center also will help to keep Boston at the forefront of the economy, said Mayor Thomas M. Menino (right), pictured with Elaine Chao.\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\t","innerContent":["\n\n\t<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignnone size-full is-resized\"><img src=\"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/101212_hbs_chao_menino_500.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-120209\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">The center also will help to keep Boston at the forefront of the economy, said Mayor Thomas M. Menino (right), pictured with Elaine Chao.\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\t"],"rendered":"\n\n\t<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignnone size-full is-resized\"><img src=\"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/101212_hbs_chao_menino_500.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-120209\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">The center also will help to keep Boston at the forefront of the economy, said Mayor Thomas M. Menino (right), pictured with Elaine Chao.\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\t"},{"blockName":"core\/freeform","attrs":{"content":"","lock":[],"metadata":[]},"innerBlocks":[],"innerHTML":"\n<p>James and Ruth met during China\u2019s mid-century upheaval, a period of multiple wars and rapid cultural change, Elaine Chao said. They reunited in Taiwan, where Ruth, the educated daughter of a distinguished family, had moved with relatives seeking safety.<\/p>\n<p>When James, then a young but already accomplished sea captain, had the chance to go to America, Ruth, then pregnant with their third of six daughters, encouraged him to do so. Three years later, Ruth and the children joined him in New York. James went on to found the international shipping, trading, and finance outfit the Foremost Group, where he remains chairman.<\/p>\n<p>The couple also established the Mulan Education Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to enhancing U.S.\u2013China relations, which has awarded thousands of scholarships.<\/p>\n<p>Through the HBS gift, her father plans to continue the legacy of his wife of six decades, who died of lymphoma in 2007, Elaine Chao said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHer spirit of altruism, generosity toward others, and contributing to society are values that he hopes that the best university in the world will instill in the smartest students in the world,\u201d Chao said, \u201cso that our world will have better leaders of principle, conscience, and service to society.\u201d<\/p>\n","innerContent":["\n<p>James and Ruth met during China\u2019s mid-century upheaval, a period of multiple wars and rapid cultural change, Elaine Chao said. They reunited in Taiwan, where Ruth, the educated daughter of a distinguished family, had moved with relatives seeking safety.<\/p>\n<p>When James, then a young but already accomplished sea captain, had the chance to go to America, Ruth, then pregnant with their third of six daughters, encouraged him to do so. Three years later, Ruth and the children joined him in New York. James went on to found the international shipping, trading, and finance outfit the Foremost Group, where he remains chairman.<\/p>\n<p>The couple also established the Mulan Education Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to enhancing U.S.\u2013China relations, which has awarded thousands of scholarships.<\/p>\n<p>Through the HBS gift, her father plans to continue the legacy of his wife of six decades, who died of lymphoma in 2007, Elaine Chao said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHer spirit of altruism, generosity toward others, and contributing to society are values that he hopes that the best university in the world will instill in the smartest students in the world,\u201d Chao said, \u201cso that our world will have better leaders of principle, conscience, and service to society.\u201d<\/p>\n"],"rendered":"\n<p>James and Ruth met during China\u2019s mid-century upheaval, a period of multiple wars and rapid cultural change, Elaine Chao said. They reunited in Taiwan, where Ruth, the educated daughter of a distinguished family, had moved with relatives seeking safety.<\/p>\n<p>When James, then a young but already accomplished sea captain, had the chance to go to America, Ruth, then pregnant with their third of six daughters, encouraged him to do so. Three years later, Ruth and the children joined him in New York. James went on to found the international shipping, trading, and finance outfit the Foremost Group, where he remains chairman.<\/p>\n<p>The couple also established the Mulan Education Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to enhancing U.S.\u2013China relations, which has awarded thousands of scholarships.<\/p>\n<p>Through the HBS gift, her father plans to continue the legacy of his wife of six decades, who died of lymphoma in 2007, Elaine Chao said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHer spirit of altruism, generosity toward others, and contributing to society are values that he hopes that the best university in the world will instill in the smartest students in the world,\u201d Chao said, \u201cso that our world will have better leaders of principle, conscience, and service to society.\u201d<\/p>\n"}],"innerHTML":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-group alignwide\">\n\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\t\n\t\r\n\n\n<\/div>\n","innerContent":["\n<div class=\"wp-block-group alignwide\">\n\n","\r\n\r\n","\r\n\t","\n\t\r\n","\n\n<\/div>\n"],"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-group alignwide has-global-padding is-content-justification-center is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\">\n\n\n\t\t<p>During the half-century that the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hbs.edu\/Pages\/default.aspx\">Harvard Business School<\/a> (HBS) has admitted women, only the family of James S.C. Chao can claim four daughters among those graduates.<\/p>\n<p>On Friday, the Chao family announced its intention to honor that legacy \u2014 as well as the life of its late matriarch, Ruth Mulan Chu Chao \u2014 with a $40 million gift to the School to support student fellowships and to build a new executive education center on the Allston campus.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat a wonderful thing to have a building on this campus that is both named for a woman and comes from the gift of four daughters,\u201d said HBS Dean Nitin Nohria during an afternoon press conference at Kresge Hall, which will be razed to make way for the Ruth Mulan Chu Chao Center, set for groundbreaking in 2014. \u201cIt is so symbolic, so wonderful for us to be able to announce this gift in a year in which we\u2019re celebrating 50 years of women graduating from Harvard Business School.\u201d<\/p>\n\r\n\r\n\n<p>The gift from the James Si-Cheng Chao and Family Foundation will allot $35 million toward construction of the Chao Center. The remaining $5 million will establish the Ruth Mulan Chu and James Si-Cheng Chao Family Fellowship Fund, which will provide financial assistance to deserving students of Chinese heritage.<\/p>\n<p>The Chaos\u2019 generosity was inspired not just by their personal connections to HBS, but by their mother\u2019s passion for education. A native of China\u2019s Anhui Province who immigrated to the United States from Taiwan with her husband and children, she once said, \u201cThe best dowry for my daughters is education,\u201d and earned her own long-delayed master\u2019s degree in Asian literature and history at 53.<\/p>\n<p>The gift serves as a reminder of the important role of women at HBS and at Harvard through history, said Harvard President Drew Faust.<\/p>\n<p>The Chao family represents \u201cgenerations of dedication to what matters most here at Harvard to all of us, and that is the power of education to generate opportunity, to create possibility for everyone in our society, for women as well as men,\u201d Faust said. \u201cThis is, of course, something that the Chao sisters lived here at Harvard Business School \u2026 education that is meant to serve others, education that is meant to build a better world.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Members of the Chao family \u2014 among them former U.S. Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, M.B.A. \u201979, and her husband, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. \u2014 were joined by HBS faculty, alumni, and staff, as well as friends of the School and representatives from the city of Boston, to celebrate the gift, one of the largest in HBS history and another boon to the Executive Education Program. (Just outside Kresge\u2019s windows, construction of Tata Hall, which will provide housing for executive education participants, was under way.)<\/p>\n<p>The Chao Center will serve as a space where the roughly 9,000 professionals who attend Executive Education programs each year can mingle with M.B.A. and doctoral students, said Elaine Chao, speaking on behalf of her father, who also attended.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn an era of internationalization, the Ruth Mulan Chu Chao Center will be a gateway and convening site to the tens of thousands of Executive Education attendees from all over the world,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>The center also will help to keep Boston at the forefront of the economy, said Mayor Thomas M. Menino.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt demonstrates the direction that Boston is moving in as we build on our status as a leader in the global economy,\u201d Menino said.<\/p>\n\r\n\t\n\n\t<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignnone size-full is-resized\"><img src=\"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/101212_hbs_chao_menino_500.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-120209\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">The center also will help to keep Boston at the forefront of the economy, said Mayor Thomas M. Menino (right), pictured with Elaine Chao.\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\t\n\t\r\n\n<p>James and Ruth met during China\u2019s mid-century upheaval, a period of multiple wars and rapid cultural change, Elaine Chao said. They reunited in Taiwan, where Ruth, the educated daughter of a distinguished family, had moved with relatives seeking safety.<\/p>\n<p>When James, then a young but already accomplished sea captain, had the chance to go to America, Ruth, then pregnant with their third of six daughters, encouraged him to do so. Three years later, Ruth and the children joined him in New York. James went on to found the international shipping, trading, and finance outfit the Foremost Group, where he remains chairman.<\/p>\n<p>The couple also established the Mulan Education Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to enhancing U.S.\u2013China relations, which has awarded thousands of scholarships.<\/p>\n<p>Through the HBS gift, her father plans to continue the legacy of his wife of six decades, who died of lymphoma in 2007, Elaine Chao said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHer spirit of altruism, generosity toward others, and contributing to society are values that he hopes that the best university in the world will instill in the smartest students in the world,\u201d Chao said, \u201cso that our world will have better leaders of principle, conscience, and service to society.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n<\/div>\n"}},"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":184593,"url":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/story\/2016\/06\/new-home-for-executive-education\/","url_meta":{"origin":120206,"position":0},"title":"New home for executive education","author":"harvardgazette","date":"June 6, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Officials gathered Monday at Harvard Business School to celebrate the opening of the Ruth Mulan Chu Chao Center, a new multipurpose facility for students in HBS\u2019 popular executive education program.","rel":"","context":"In "Campus & Community"","block_context":{"text":"Campus & Community","link":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/section\/campus-community\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/060616_chao_0636_605.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/060616_chao_0636_605.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/060616_chao_0636_605.jpg?resize=525%2C300 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