Toh Puan Mahani Idris Daim's donation of $1.5 million establishes the first endowed professorship in Humanities and Social Sciences at NTU.

When matched dollar-for-dollar by the Government, the gift amounts to a $3 million endowment.

The Toh Puan Mahani Idris Daim Chair Professorship, launched on 29 November at the Istana, will enable NTU to appoint eminent scholars to teach and conduct research that will boost the development of humanities and social sciences in the region.

His Excellency Mr S R Nathan, President of the Republic of Singapore, presided at the launch as Chancellor of NTU and Patron-in-Chief of the NTU 21st Century Fund.

Timely donation
The donation is timely - NTU's new School of Humanities & Social Sciences (HSS) went into full swing in July this year with a suite of programmes in English, Chinese, Sociology, Psychology and Economics.

"We see this school as the soul of the university, from which flows language, literature, culture, the arts, and an appreciation of the highest qualities in life," said NTU President Su Guaning in his address at the Istana.

"It is most appropriate that Toh Puan Mahani Idris Daim, who exemplifies these qualities and wants to promote their propagation not just in Singapore but also throughout the Nanyang region, is helping this fledgling new school," he added.

Plans are afoot to expand the school's undergraduate offerings to include Politics and Public Administration, Linguistics, and History.

According to Prof Eddie Kuo, Interim Dean of HSS, the professorship "symbolises a strong recognition of the crucial contributions of the humanities and social sciences to a holistic education and its potential contribution to both higher education and public intellectual life in contemporary Asia."

Achieving the goals of humanities
Madam Mahani - an ardent supporter of the arts in Malaysia and the wife of former Malaysian Finance minister Tun Daim Zaninuddin - spent the first 12 years of her life in Singapore and studied at Raffles Girls' School.

She values the education she had here and the friendships she has kept.

In her speech peppered with Mandarin, Madam Mahani noted that "education and education alone" holds the key to success.

This was also the basis of her donation, she explained.

"A good university will produce good graduates. I therefore agree to support this Chair wholeheartedly. I am sure the Chair will encourage more researchers in the arts and humanities… People need to understand each other better, so that the world can be at peace."

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