Last fall, in honor of his upcoming 20th Reunion, Alan Zhou ’03 took advantage of Cornell’s and made a gift to establish the Alan and Chelsea Zhou Family Scholarship. The fund will provide financial assistance to undergraduate students with demonstrated financial need, with a preference for students from the states of Maine, Oklahoma, and Texas.
Alan, who was born in Beijing, moved to the U.S. when he was ten so his mother could attend college. They moved to Presque Isle, Maine, a community of about 10,000 people located 15 minutes south of the Canadian border. At the age of 45, Alan’s mom, Helen Zhang, enrolled as an undergraduate at the University of Maine at Presque Isle.
“Back in China, my mom had never gone to college because university doors were shuttered during the Cultural Revolution,” Alan explains.
After graduating, Helen moved to Norman, Oklahoma, where she earned an MBA from the University of Oklahoma. Alan, an only child, moved around the country with his mom, while she pursued her education and a career in telecommunications in Texas. Alan’s father worked in another state-as a night manager at a residential facility for people struggling with addiction and mental illness.
Alan’s family didn’t have much in those days, and he was deeply impressed by the generosity and kindness of their U.S. neighbors. “In the cold, snowy winters of Maine, strangers would stop their cars on the side of the road and offer us rides,” he recalls. “In Oklahoma, when my 9th grade counselor learned I might not be getting enough to eat (I was seen taking food home from the school cafeteria), she and the school principal showed up at my home unannounced with boxes of food and gift cards to the grocery store. And, in Texas, there were many teachers and classmates whose encouragement and friendship still touch me today.”
