$1 Million Gift From Alumnus Winston Chan Creates New Scholarship
10/23/2019
The Division of Development has announced that Saint Louis University trustee and alumnus Winston Chan, Ph.D., (A&S ’81, ’83) has made a $1,000,000 gift to the University in support of Accelerating Excellence: The Campaign for Saint Louis University.
The generous gift creates the Biondi Chan Scholars Fund, which will support students from rural areas of China who require financial assistance to study at SLU.
“As a university with a global reach, making SLU accessible to capable students from other countries is important to our future growth; Winston’s generosity ensures that,” said Sheila Manion, vice president of development.
The new scholarship is named in honor of President Emeritus Lawrence Biondi, S.J., who Chan has worked with extensively on student recruitment and alumni engagement in Asia.
“Father Biondi’s global mindset has done good things for the University,” Chan said. “I think everybody should have a chance, and with this funding, we’ll be able to get the really top-notch but underprivileged students to SLU.”
Raised in Hong Kong, Chan came to the United States to study as a high school junior at a Jesuit high school in Indianapolis. After graduating, he earned his Bachelor of Science degree in geophysics at Columbia University in 1979. He then came to SLU to complete graduate education degrees in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, earning a master’s degree and a doctorate in geophysics in 1981 and 1983, respectively.
Chan is currently the chief executive officer of Corvusys, Inc., a financial services company headquartered in Virginia.
Long active within the SLU community, Chan has established graduate research scholarship funds in geophysics and seismology, hosted on-campus receptions for international students and maintained contact with SLU’s alumni clubs in China. He has privately funded tuition for three Chinese students as they pursued their degrees at SLU. Chan was awarded the College of Arts and Sciences Alumni Merit Award in 1998. He became a University trustee in 2007.
By creating a scholarship, Chan’s gift also supports one of the strategic priorities of Accelerating Excellence. The historic $500 million fundraising effort aims to propel SLU to national prominence as a distinguished research university through investment in scholarships, academic excellence, business education, health sciences and athletics.
“Winston values SLU’s legacy of academic excellence, and his generous gift allows us to provide a transformative, values-based education with global impact,” said University President Fred Pestello, Ph.D. “We are grateful for his counsel as a trustee and thankful for his support of the Accelerating Excellence campaign.”
Founded in 1818, Saint Louis University is one of the nation’s oldest and most prestigious Catholic institutions. Rooted in Jesuit values and its pioneering history as the first university west of the Mississippi River, SLU offers nearly 13,000 students a rigorous, transformative education of the whole person. At the core of the University’s diverse community of scholars is SLU’s service-focused mission, which challenges and prepares students to make the world a better, more just place.