The Establishment of HBMUOAA: A Brief History


First draft by Yidao Cai on Feburary 22, 1997
Last revision by Zhi-Ming Zheng on April 8, 1997

There are two lines of events that finally led to the establishment of HBMUOAA: the alumni gatherings in Eastern US and the alumni web site.

On November 11, 1995, alumnus Yidao Cai (class 7906/7901/7904) established a web site for the alumni of HBMU. In the "alumni association" section, he called for the establishment of an alumni association. On the web site, Dr. Cai maintained an alumni list through some automatic procedure. The alumni list started with only 4 or 5 people Dr. Cai contacted and grew steadily from there, as more and more people found the site from internet. By the time the our HBMUOAA was established, there were more than 40 people on the list. Taking into account of the fact that some people prefer not to put their names on the list, it is quite a complishment.

On the other line, Drs. Ren Ke, Zheng Zhi-ming, Prof. Tian Hongshen and others had long began discussing the issue of setting up an alumni association. Their first such gathering was on the Mid-Autumn Day in 1995, in Washington DC. When Dr. Zheng found out our web site, he immediately wrote Dr. Cai the following message informing him of local alumni activities:


(------------------ included message begins -----------------------)
From: "Zheng, Thomas" Zhengt@dce41.nci.nih.gov
To: "'cai yidao'" caiy@novell.boystown.org
Cc: Ke Ren knr001@dental3.ab.umd.edu
Subject: HMU Alumni
Date: Mon, 30 Sep 96 15:50:00

Hi, Dr. Cai. I am so proud of you setting up a home page for Hubei Medical University Alumni. You did a gread job. Last year, Dr. Ren Ke and I gathered at least eight families associated with Hubei Medical University in the D.C. area for celebrating the Chinese Moonday and discussed briefly if we could establish formally a Hubei Medical University Alumni. Yahong Liu, a former graduate student from the HMU Dept. of Pathology, put together each attendee's phone number and address and later spread out to each attendee by E-mail. Dr. Tian Hongsen, former Professor and Department Chairman of Pathology initiated the suggestion again to establish the Hubei Medical University Alumni Oversea during my picnic party for four former HMU faculty members in this area past weekend (9/28/96). I think it is time now to discuss the issue and to ask each member of the HMU alumni for the comments. Since you already set up the Home page, it will be easy for you to put our suggestions on the HMU Home Page for the comments. Thank you and with my best regards.

Sincerely yours,

Zhi-Ming Zheng, Ph.D.
Former Vice Director and Assoc. Prof.
Virus Research Institute of HMU

Attendees of the Picnic 9/28/96

Ren, Ke , Ph.D.
Assistant Professor University of Maryland School of Dentist Former Assistant Prof. of Physiology of HMU
Ye, Shuqing, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor John Hopkins University School of Medicine Former Assistant Prof. of Biochemistry of HMU
Tian, Hongsen, M.D.
Visiting Scientist, NIDR/NIH Former Prof. and Dept. Chairman, Dept. of Pathol. of HMU
Tao, Siying, M.D.
Visiting Scientis, NNMRI Former Prof. of Dept. of Pathophysiology of HMU
Xiang, Jianing, Ph.D.
Scientist Smithkline Pharmaceutical Co.
Attendees of the last year picnic:
(------------------ included message ends -----------------------)

This message was put on our web site to formally call for the establishment of an alumni association, and in fact started the latest drive towards our final goal. Thus far, two forces behind the establishment of HBMUOAA united.

The call got very positive, if not overwelming, responses from alumni around the world. What happened next was quite natural. The acivitists discussed the form and nature of the organization and all sorts of stuff. Under the request of Dr. Zheng, Dr. Cai drafted a bylaw and the draft was then modified several times by Drs. Zheng Zhi-Ming, Ren Ke, and Ye shui-Qing on its terminology, membership, organization structure, and goals. Subsequently, the revised version was sent to several members of the tentative preparation committe for further comments before driving to its final form.

On February 1, 1997, most of our alumni member near Washington, D.C. and Baltimore area were gathered again, under Dr. Ye Shui-Qing's invitation, to discuss the matter in his house in Baltimore. They approved the bylaw and declared the establishment of HBMUOAA.

Here is a message from Dr. Zheng to Dr. Cai about this historic event:


(------------------ included message begins -----------------------)
From: Zhengt@dce41.nci.nih.gov Wed Feb 5 18:05:08 1997
To: Yidao Cai
Subject: HBMU Alumni Association

Hi, Yidao,

I was glad to hear you back to the States safely! We had a meeting at Dr. Ye Shuiqing's house in Baltimore on Feb. 1, 1997 and formally established our Alumni Association on that day! It was to my surprise after four such historic meetings that everyone in the party was very supportive and voted for it. I originally thought that we might need to set a scheduled date on the matter but instead we don't need it anymore! Attached are the first term HBMUAAO officers elected during the party which will take part in its duty for next two years.

We also scheduled our first alumni gathering party on coming Chinese Dragon festival at a park between Washington, D.C. and Baltimore. The exact party spot will be located before the event takes place. Meantime, Drs. Kang Xiaoqiang and Tian Hongsheng are preparing a brief news for local Chinese newspaper. In addition, I will fax a note to Hubei Medical University on HBMUAAO establishment. Although the draft bylaw looks good, we may need to put more work on its final version including the founding history (Web page plus several historic gathering meeting here since 1995) before we can put it on our Web page. Happy Chinese New Year!

Sincerely,

Zhi-Ming Zheng

Attendees of Dr. Ye Shuiqing's Alumni Party on Feb. 1, 1997

     Kang Xiaoqiang	NCI/NIH
     Li Qing            NICHD/NIH
     Liu Zhifang        University of Maryland
     Ren Ke             University of Maryland
     Tao Shiying        Naval Medical Research Institute
     Tian Hongsheng     NIDR/NIH
     Ye Shuiqing        John Hopkins University
     Zhang Liqin        John Hopkins University
     Zheng Zhi-Ming     NCI/NIH
     Zou Shiping        University of Maryland
     He Peijun          University of Maryland
     Wang Yanlin        John Hopkins University
     Tu Jiancheng       John Hopkins University
Members were not in the party:
     Chen Huaxian       NIA/NIH
     He Xinjun          NIDR/NIH
     Liu Yahong,        GTI
     Meng Xiangjin      NIAID/NIH
     Shang  Shizhang    Geogetown University
     Wu Xiaozai         NIDDK/NIH
(------------------ included message ends -----------------------)

The end.