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Daniel Tan with the Hmong student he worked with at Wellstone Elementary in St. Paul, Minnesota, with during the Alternative Spring Break. |
Each year, the Office of Student Activities and Leadership presents its annual Michigan Leadership Awards to recognize outstanding University students, faculty and organizations for their accomplishments in both academic and extracurricular endeavors, and for their contributions to the vitality of the University of Michigan. The awards have been tailored to recognize the true spirit of leadership at the University of Michigan that values integrity, initiative, stewardship reciprocity, and respect. This year, thanks to his exemplary record of achievement in and out of the classroom, ME alumnus Daniel Tan received an Outstanding Student Leader honor.
Tan, a native of Singapore, was the President of the Singapore Students’ Association (SSA) prior to his graduation in April 2005. In that role, he was instrumental in formulating a new vision for the organization – to foster stronger cohesion within the Singaporean community, as well as to reach out to the wider University of Michigan community. In addition to working on improving the events that have been conventionally organized to build stronger bonds between the organization’s 150 members, he led the effort to identify new events to facilitate the formation of interest groups within the community and jumpstart a self-renewing process to bring the community closer together.
Tan’s efforts were designed to benefit the greatest number of people in and out of the University community as possible. Among his achievements, he arranged for SSA members’ parents to have the option of applying to the alumni society in Singapore as associate members, with the intention of starting a support group back at home. He also worked on developing new strategic partnerships with diverse groups on campus to create win-win situations for everyone involved.
“I worked on developing closer relationships between the Southeast Asian (SEA) student groups,” said Tan. “This included the Indonesian Students’ Association (PERMIAS), the Malaysian Students’ Association (UMIMSA) and the Thai Students’ Association (TSA). Our goal was to establish networking opportunities for all our members and to promote the SEA culture to the U–M community. To this end, I founded a new student group, the Southeast Asian Network, in consultation with the presidents of these groups.”
That effort led to the establishment of a SEA Culture Night in March 2005 that showcased the region’s unique cultures to the U-M community through food, performances and exhibitions. The event was so successful that it was awarded the Outstanding Collaboration Award at the APA Awards 2005.
Tan was also actively involved in SERVE, the student-run unit at the University of Michigan that works to provide students with opportunities to address serious social issues through community service and social action. The goal is to heighten campus awareness of social issues, increase student involvement in the community, address community problems, and raise social consciousness.
“I served on the Leadership Team of the Alternative Spring Break (ASB) program within SERVE as the only returning member from last year. I worked with the rest of the team to plan 35 service trips to different sites across the country. More than 400 students across campus went on these trips during spring break in 2005 for an immersive community service experience. My specific role entailed planning education and training sessions throughout the whole year for our 72 student leaders so that they were fully prepared to lead their respective groups on the trips. I’m pleased to say that for ASB's work, we received the Outstanding Campus Impact award at the 2005 Ginsberg Awards for Community Service and Social Action.”
In addition to winning the Outstanding Student Leader honor, Tan had earlier received Michigan Campus Compact's "Commitment to Service" award at the Outstanding Student Service Awards 2004-2005.
“I was thankful, touched and deeply humbled,” said Tan of receiving the award. “I thought that it is one of the highest honors to be recognized as a student leader among the 'leaders and best' and that it must be shared with everyone I have worked with and from whom I have learned so much. I think that this honor is not just about what I have done, but also about what I can do from now on.”
Tan recently completed an internship with BMW in Landshut, Germany, and he’ll be working toward a master’s degree in management science and engineering at Stanford.