Caltech Glee Club with David Wei (MS '04, PhD '07), front row, far right
Informed by his time at Caltech, including his experiences with the Glee Club, alumnus David Wei has created a fund to support music performances and programs. He hopes others will contribute as well.
As a newly arrived graduate student at Caltech, David Wei (MS '04, PhD '07) was wandering around a club fair on Beckman Mall and—despite not considering himself a good singer—felt drawn to the Glee Club booth. After some encouragement and a bit of coaching from then-director Donald Caldwell, Wei was soon a part of holiday performances at Dabney Hall, local churches, and other venues.
Wei believes that co-curricular activities such as the performing and visual arts are crucial to students' well-being but can be relatively underserved. So—after learning about the Initiative for Caltech Students, a fundraising campaign focused on improving every aspect of the student experience—Wei made a $100,000 gift to create the Performing and Visual Arts Program Fund for Music. The endowed fund will support the performances, programs, and associated activities and needs of the music department.
Wei chose not to put his name on the fund because he hopes that other donors will contribute. In this regard, he was inspired by his experience as one of dozens of alumni who made gifts to the Caltech C Graduate Fellowship Fund, which now surpasses $1 million. "At the end of the day, we all want to build a sustainable program that can connect alumni who share the same vision," he says.
