Generosity Repaid
February 28, 2025 10:22 AM
Imagine receiving a check for $100,000 as a birthday gift. And turning it down.
That’s what happened to Michele Shoresman.
“I was shocked!” says Shoresman, ’71, Ed.M. ’74, Ph.D. ’89 ED. “My first thought was this doesn’t belong to me. I didn’t feel it was mine.”
The gift came from Qiumei Yang, M.S. ’92, Ph.D. ’96 BUS, who in 1990 came to the University of Illinois Urbana‑Champaign with less than $100 to her name. Her travel expenses were paid as a gift from Shoresman.
The two had met in summer 1988, when Shoresman was in Beijing, China, doing research for her dissertation. Yang, a graduate student at Peking University at the time, was assigned to translate for Shoresman and assist her as needed.
“At the end of Michele’s visit, she said I was such a bright student, and I should come to study in the United States for a Ph.D.,” Yang recalls. “But I just smiled and said I didn’t have the money to come to the U.S.”
Yang was making the equivalent of $10 a month as a graduate assistant. While cost of living in 1988 in China was low (as were the salaries—her parents made the equivalent of $30 to $40 a month)—Yang was living meagerly, paycheck to paycheck.
“I had never even dreamed of going to the U.S.,” she says. “Even to take the GRE, it cost $40. I told Michele I couldn’t even afford to take the test to get into grad school.”
“Well, you can now,” Shoresman replied, digging into her purse and fishing $65 out. She plunked the money into Yang’s hand and said, “There you go. Now go take the test.”
