Diffendal Foundation in China Marks 20 Years of Student Awards

Diffendal Foundation awards ceremony, December 21, 2007.

Bob Diffendal received this certificate, thanking him for service to the Diffendal Foundation at the Geosciences Department of Sun Yat-Sen University in China. The seal in the background depicts the first building on what has become a rapidly-growing campus.

School of Natural Resources Professor Emeritus Robert Diffendal and his wife, Anne, planted a seed more than 20 years ago that has grown into the Diffendal Foundation, endowing a scholarship fund for Geosciences students at Sun Yat-Sen University in Guangzhou, China.

They taught there for the first time in late 1985 and early 1986, Bob teaching courses in geosciences and Anne teaching English conversation and lecturing on archival practices in the U.S. They found the arrangement was that “you’re provided a room and you’re given money to buy food,” Bob said. In fact, the money came regularly, delivered by different members of the host department, once by a man with a carrier bag on a bike. It ended up being more than they needed, so at the end of the their two months in China, the Diffendals took it to the chair of the Geosciences Department and proposed that the department invest the remaining 1,000 yuan and award the annual interest to the best Geosciences student as a prize each year.

At first, Bob said, the chair’s response was, “We’ve heard of that but we don’t do it here,” and Bob’s answer was, “Try it.” Later that year, a rancher who was a friend of the Diffendals contributed $1,000 to the interest-earning sum. The Diffendals and their friends also added to it in subsequent years. The first of the annual prizes was awarded in December 1988, and there has been enough money for prizes every year since then. In 2007, the fund made its 20th round of awards, giving out five awards to top sophomore, junior, senior and post-graduate students.

Over the years, the amount of money increased and the university grew, so the Diffendal Foundation was created in 2005 by the Geosciences Department at Sun Yat-Sen University to ensure that money is managed and prizes are awarded in accord with the Diffendals’ original intent. Starting in 2005 the department also initiated an annual appeal to alumni to donate to the prize fund.

The Diffendals have also helped establish similar prizes at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln: The Myerly-Martin prize for best student work in soft rock geology, and the Carl Gugler Prize in the School of Biological Sciences.

Over the years, Bob said, he has had a chance to observe both similarities and differences between the United States and China. Faculty in both countries are now under more pressure to generate grant support.

Both countries continue to need geoscientists to face the challenges ahead, because both countries are facing natural resources problems such as declines in soil and water quality and quantity, air quality, and production of minerals, he said.