Recently, Yew Chung made an endowment in perpetuity to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), resulting in the “Yew Chung – Bernard Spodek Scholar in Early Childhood Education”.

This position at the university, which is to be held by different people over the years, will exist forever, representing our permanent tie to both the institution as well as our support to the academic field of ECE. At the same time, it is also meant to honour Prof. Spodek – the former PhD Supervisor of Dr Betty Chan Po-king, Director of Yew Chung.

On May 12, Dr Chan attended the inauguration ceremony of the Yew Chung – Bernard Spodek Scholar in ECE at UIUC. The inaugural Scholar is Dr Stephanie Sanders-Smith. In her speech, Dr Chan talked about the importance to let the East and the West communicate and share the practical experiences of ECE. And she hoped that these experiences can be accumulated and used to construct research and to build theories, which help the community know the importance of this early age period of life, and also let policy makers understand the importance of this age group of children and ultimately set policies to safeguard their interests. “In the end, these will benefit society,” she said.