The Yang Family Chinese Cooperation Endowment, founded by Michael Yang and Anna Fang (Hang ’14), will allow students and faculty to interact with Chinese educational communities, Head of External Relations Ed Hu said. This endowment follows a donation by the Yangs from 2013, which was used for a similar purpose.

“They originally gave a gift as a spend-down fund, meaning they wanted it to be used immediately, to help us improve our relations and exposure to China,” Hu said. “Because they were very happy with the way that was being used, they then gave a larger sum of money, which is going to be this endowment.”

The endowment aims to increase the opportunities for students to become more globally involved in various ways. Hu said it could be used for “teachers or administrators to visit China or Chinese schools, or to explore cooperative educational opportunities.” The increased presence of Harvard-Westlake in China could also lead to more Chinese students attending the school, Hu said.

“If we want to graduate kids that are going to be global citizens and people who understand not only the world that they’re living in but the world that they are going to be working in and impacting, it is important for our kids to get exposed to that broader world,” Hu said. “China is just one of many places that we would want our kids to be exposed to.”

The Yangs chose to donate to Chinese relations because of their experience moving to Los Angeles from China to find the best education possible for their son.

“[My son] received his education up to middle school from the best schools in China, then attended Harvard-Westlake for high school,” Yang said. “He was intrigued by the drastic contrast in the philosophies and practices of these two education systems. The Chinese system places emphasis on building the students’ repertoire of knowledge, while the American system focuses more on the students’ overall development.