In the following, I'll explain how we handle/use the alumni information and how you can help to improve the overall functionality of the alumni list.

The alumni information is stored in a data base that contains the following fields: Name, Year, Department, Address, Email, Phone Number, etc. These information are used to sort the list according to last name, year entered, old department/institute, country/region currently resides. All fields in the alumni information are optional except for the Name field (which is obviously neccessary). However, in order to make the list more useful, we would appreciate you also put the year you studied/worked in our university and leave at least one form of contact information. Specifically,

1. Name The name field is used to sort according to your Name in Pinyin. We may add a num like (2) after your name, if more than one person share the same name. When searching, we only use the information on the first line. As a result, please put all other information on the second line in your name field, including name in Chinese, English, etc. Putting your English name in the first line or only use your English name does not help, since your old classmates most likely do not know your English name at all.

2. Year The information in this field is used to identify the first year your studied or worked in the University. 3. Department/Institute your worked for. We use information on the Department lines to generate the list.

3. Country/Region We use the mailing address, current affiliation and email address, in that order, to figure out where you are. So it is important for you to put relevent information at least in one of the three places. If you do not wish to give your full address, something like Canada or Texas, USA would be good enough.

   For people in US, we use full state name or "IL 34567" in address field to match the state. State abbrevation like in "Chicago, IL" without zip code is not sufficient. In that case, please change to "Chicago, Illinois" format.

4. Department/Institute Information in this field is used for classification of department/institute you studied in (worked for). We will match one department per line. So if you wish to be classified into two departments, put them each on a seperate line.

• If both you and your spouse are our alumni, we prefer you to fill out seperate forms.
• Do NOT put irrelevent messages, such as "not yet", on the email and WWW address fields (You may put "I am looking for one" on the Spouse line though).
• When you need to update your information, even just one line or one character, submit a new entry instead of asking the list maintainer to do so.

Security of Alumni information

The information in our alumni list is used by our alumni and friends, thus we could not make it confidential. However, we do our best to protect it from people who may use it for purposes we do not intend to.

• Your email and phone number will be displayed on web pages in a human readable only format, which will make it difficult, although not impossible for spammers to get them.
• You may opt not to display email address on web pages. In that case, you will be able to receive email from us regarding alumni issues. When your friend wish to contact you, we will send his/her email address or other contact information to you.
• Some people found that searching by phone number in google returns complete contact information about one person. That may or may not have anything to do with our alumni listing, because those information are available in phone books and there is a company in Omaha hiring thousands of people to input those information into their database, then sell the information. One of my friend once worked in that company.
• We welcome suggestions to make improvements.