Jennie Chua first Singaporean appointed Member of Board of Trustees at Cornell University

Jennie Chua, President and Chief Executive Officer of Raffles Holdings Limited and Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Raffles International Limited, has been appointed a member of Cornell University's Board of Trustees. Ms Chua's term of office will be for four years and took effect on 1 July.

The appointment to the university's board at a special meeting held in Ithaca, New York, on 29 May 2004 made Ms Chua the first Singaporean to serve as a trustee.  

Cornell trustees elect the university's top leadership, including the university's president, as well as tenured faculty. They also advise the university on educational policy, academic programmes, campus life, and key financial policies, and oversee financial operations.

Cornell University, founded in 1865, comprises 13 schools and colleges and 53 interdisciplinary research centres and institutes. The schools and colleges more well-known internationally and to Singaporeans are the College of Engineering, School of Hotel Administration, Weill Medical College of Cornell, Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies and the Department of Biology and Genetics, among others.

As the one of the largest, most comprehensive universities in the Ivy League, Cornell University provides an abundance of opportunities for interdisciplinary study, research, and teaching. The student population at Cornell stands at approximately 18,500 from 125 countries around the world. 27 Nobel laureates have been affiliated with Cornell as faculty members or former students.

Cornell University is presently leading NASA's Mars Exploration Rover (MER) mission. Led by Professor Steve Squyres, a professor of astronomy and former chairman of NASA's Space Science Advisory Committee, the team from Cornell designed and commissioned the scientific instruments on the Mars rover. The team is also in charge of carrying out scientific operations on the planet.

About 200 to 300 Singaporeans apply to Cornell University annually, the largest number outside the United States to do so. Currently, 139 Singaporeans are students at the university. Of this, 104 are undergraduates, mainly in the School of Engineering, while 35 are on graduate programmes.

Ms Chua was the first Singapore woman to graduate with a Bachelor of Science degree from Cornell's School of Hotel Administration in 1971 and has continued her affiliation with the university as a member of the President's Council of Cornell Women and Cornell's University Council, prior to her recent appointment.