Dear USTC friends,

As many of you might know, I am involved
with the USTC Alumni Foundation for the
past 10 years. Today, the total contribution
from thousands of alumni including many
of YOU have reached above $504K, and 
additional contributions from all over the
world are still coming in. I hope you
can share our joy and celebrate what a
difference together we have already made
in helping USTC and its people.

Since I have been sending out all those
messages for USTC Alumni Foundation, from
time to time, people not familiar with me 
may wonder -- How can this guy be such
a maniac? Does he have a personal agenda?

Yes, I do have a personal agenda, and I 
would like to share with you today --

Back in 1995, I was only 27 years old, I 
was still very arrogant, with almost 30
papers on top physics journals and 
possibility of landing a faculty position
soon, I felt personally offended when USTC
was ranked by someone below some other schools.
So I got involved in founding the USTC Alumni
Foundation, and donated the first $125
when I was making only $15/hour as a post-doc
at the University of Chicago. I did it
just for my personal pride. 

I served as USTCAF Chair in 1996, and
Secretary from 1998 to 2001, and Board Member
from 1996 to 2002. We have experienced 
tremendous growth all the way through 2000
with help from many of you guys of course. 

In the mean time, life was also teaching me 
lessons. I failed to land any faculty position
despite being close (2nd candidate at one 
school), I failed to find any industry jobs 
up to August 1997 because of my poor interview
skills. Probably because God answered my
prayer :), I was offered a descent job by
Viewlogic with which I had a perfect interview,
one week before I was about to leave for
B-school in University of Maryland. 

Over the years with ups and downs in Silicon
Valley, I have become humble and started to
doubt whether it matters whether USTC ranked
No.1 or not. In the same time, USTCAF entered
difficult time because of the downturn in US
economy. In 2002, we raised only $30K. Some
people on the board started to get frustrated,
and there was even rumor that I was pursuing
personal agenda by staying in USTCAF board for 
too long.

At that time, my son was only three-month old,
and I was working for a startup on the way
DOWN, I resigned from USTCAF board and really
went out to pursue my personal interest i.e.
taking care of my family and career growth.
As some of you might know, my daughter was
born in Jan 2005, and the startup I joined
in Oct 2002 was acquired by Cadence, as a 
result, I got a not too big not too small
portfolio in my brokerage account. I have
already pledged to donate 500 shares of
CDNS before Sep, 2008, the 50th anniversary
for USTC.

Why do I come back actively involving with 
USTCAF again? You will only understand when
you have kids.

As many of you in Silicon Valley know, even
though I have a million-dollar fix-upper, I
still have to pay big mortgage and save for
kids college tuition. But have you ever thought
about on the day that you send your kids to
Stanford/Harvard/MIT/Yale, the question they
will eventually ask? --

"Mom/Dad, which undergraduate school did YOU 
go?"

How are you going to answer them? You may have
two choices --
A. "Er... let's not to talk about that";
B. "Son/Daughter, I went to the BEST university
   in China!"

Just imagine, to be honest, back in our mind,
we all looked down upon our own parents on the
day we went to USTC -- because they went to 
other schools or did not even go to college. 
Are you going to let that happen to you as well?

I refuse so. I would do whatever it takes to
have my kids to respect me as a person who 
went to USTC. At the time when we founded
USTCAF, one alumnus said "I make contribution
TODAY because I love USTC, I do NOT want to
see that in the future, when I am old and rich
but USTC has been dead, I would have no where
to donate my money" -- today I can fully
understand his statement.

Dear friends, I sincerely hope not only you
could understand my involvement with USTCAF,
but also you could join our effort so that
you CAN look straight into the eyes of your 
kids and answer proudly --

"Son/Daughter, I went to the BEST university
in China!"

Please feel free to share my personal testimony
with all your friends from USTC.

Have a nice holiday season.

Dongzi Liu(854/8500)

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
PS: 

To make a tax-deductible contribution,
please go to

http://www.ustcaf.org/donation/

If you want to make stock donation, please
contact Zhang Shangyou(771) at

  szhang-AT-udel.edu

Or if you are lazy, just send a
check payable to "USTC Alumni Foundation" to

USTCAF,
c/o Mr. Bing Zhang,
307 Blue Jay Dr,
Hockessin, DE 19707,
USA

(Please also write your email
address, USTC class number and
your Chinese name on the check.)

Your contribution will --
* Help USTC recruit the most
promising young kids;
* Help relief financial burden for
some of these young kids;
* Reward those excel in teaching
those young kids;
* Reward those promising young
faculty members lifting USTC's
reputation as a leader in Science
and Technology.