Since 2010, a group of alumni in Malaysia have been coordinating reunion events in Kuala Lumpur. Hasnah Ishak (BBA ’87, Computer Information Systems) explained that it began when a few alumni ‘met’ on Facebook, set up a committee of sorts, and organized their first reunion. Since then, they’ve held one or two events each year, with somewhere between 70 and 200 attendees at each event.
"Most of our events are held in Kuala Lumpur where most of us live,” Hasnah explained in an email, “But there are some guests who live in other states and travel quite far to attend the events. A few live in the East Malaysia and have to travel by plane to Kuala Lumpur.”
She noted that their most successful event to date was a WMU Family event at a beach resort that lasted two days and included ‘a lot of fun in the sand and sea.’
For Hasnah, the memories of her time in Kalamazoo are quite clear. “Personally, the best part was the 'newness' of everything,” she explained. “Being in a foreign land, seeing snow for the first time… I think the best part, which is totally different from studying here, is the close relationship and good rapport between students and teachers. The teachers at WMU are so accommodating. They are like friends. I enjoyed the easy going atmosphere.”
Hasnah chose to attend to WMU because of the high praise it was given by her friends. “Way back then, there was no Internet to Google where to go, or which university to choose,” she said. “So we had to totally rely on friends' references and recommendations. In the mid-80s, many Malaysian students studied in WMU. Although I may have chosen WMU because a lot of friends were already there, I'm very glad that I chose to study in WMU… I had a lot of very enjoyable moments studying there and living in Kalamazoo... and have made many, many wonderful friends who remain some of my closest friends.”
President Dunn traveled to Malaysia in 2012 for the 25th anniversary of WMU’s partnership with Sunway University College in Kuala Lumpur, and commented, “Our connections to Malaysia go back to the late-1960s and 1970s, when large numbers of Malaysian government scholarship students were enrolled at WMU. Together these programs have meant that we now have an alumni community in Malaysia of about 2,500 strong.”
WMU is home to one of the oldest and largest transnational education programs (formerly known as ‘twinning’) in the U.S. In 1987, WMU collaborated with Sunway, and since then, transnational education at WMU has grown to include international articulation programs and dual degrees. The twinning program placed a WMU faculty member on site at Sunway to guide Malaysian students through their first two years of college studies before they traveled to WMU to complete their final two years of study and earn a bachelor's degree. The Sunway program continues to bring new students to WMU each year.
While the group has not yet made it back to campus for a reunion, Hasnah, who has not been back to WMU since 1987, says she hopes it will one day happen. In the meantime, the reunions in Kuala Lumpur offer alumni in Malaysia the opportunity to gather and reminisce about their college days, meet new friends, and reconnect with those they haven’t seen in years.