As this academic year comes to a close and our first cohort of Yenching Scholars part ways, a new chapter of the Academy’s history is just beginning: the Yenching Academy Graduate Student Union. The preface of this new chapter began at the drawing board last October, when around 30 Yenching Scholars convened to begin plans for drafting a constitution. The road to ratifying this document was a long and winding one, if not chiefly due to the uniquely diverse nature of our Academy. I could imagine that ratifying a constitutional document among citizens of the same town, city, or nation is difficult enough. As for the Yenching Academy, with the Scholars of our first cohort hailing from 31 countries from all corners of the globe, it is perhaps surprising that we managed to formulate and agree on its contents all in this first year. This, and not to mention translating the ten-page document into Chinese, a gargantuan project spearhead by our very own 2015 Yenching Scholars Chen Qiqi and Liu Xiaolin as well as residential tutor Chen Ting.
After presenting our translated document to the Peking University Graduate Student Union, and the Youth League Committee this past spring, we received the thumbs-up from the Yenching administration to launch our Academy’s first Graduate Student Union elections. Yenching Scholars Liu Xiaolin and Ugnė Mikalajūnaitė graciously served as our elections managers, designing a transparent and democratic election process and holding Yenching’s first candidates’ forum on March 31. In total, 75 out of 96 Scholars voted – an impressive 80% turnout. Along with Chen Zhenxing (vice president), Ani Grigoryan (director of events), Benjamin Griffin (director of operations), Fu Duanling (director of public relations), and Yang Tian (director of finance), I am honored to have the opportunity to represent and serve Yenching Academy’s first-ever Graduate Student Union on the executive committee. Now officially joining the University Graduate Student Union which counts nearly all other Peking University's departments among its members, we hope that through this institutional channel we will not only be able to improve the Academy internally but also forge stronger relationships with the greater Peking University community.
With great anticipation, I look forward to the future of the YCA Graduate Student Union, which is possibly the first of its kind. As one of the only student governments in China to serve the students of such an international department as the Yenching Academy, the Graduate Student Union will likely face many complex questions in the future months, years, and decades. Still in its infant stages, the form and the direction that this institution will take is in the hands of Yenching Scholars for generations to come.
Cody Abbey,
2015 Yenching Scholar
President of the Yenching Academy Graduate Student Union
