May 6, 2011

CMB Chair Mary Bullock and President Lincoln Chen with new PUMC Vice Presidents.

The histories of CMB and Peking Union Medical College (PUMC) are intrinsically linked: CMB was founded in 1914 by the Rockefeller Foundation to support PUMC’s development. PUMC convened a seminar May 6 to examine the history of PUMC, CMB, and the Rockefeller Foundation. CMB Chair Mary Bullock, Rockefeller Archive Center (RAC) President and CEO Jack Meyers, and RAC Vice President and Director of Research and Education Jim Smith attended; PUMC representatives included two new vice presidents, Cao Xuetao and Zeng Yixin.

The PUMC archives are not only a rich source of information about the partnership between the medical college and CMB, they also contain data of interest to researchers of Chinese medical education, health sector reform, international exchange, and other issues. CMB awarded a grant in 2009 to enhance the use of the PUMC archives, increase the quality and quantity of preservation work, and strengthen professional development of staff necessary for archival use and preservation. The PUMC archives contain over 6,000 volumes of documents and more than 5,000 pictures dating from 1914.