Yale administrators and alumni Wednesday shared their experience in alumni relations with their Chinese counterparts at the World Alumni Leadership Conference in Beijing.

Linda Lorimer, vice president of Yale University, is leading a delegation of Yale University alumni, family and friends on a visit to China. After their Beijing visit, they will make stops in Xi'an, Shanghai and Hong Kong to explore opportunities for alumni collaboration with leading universities in China.

As part of the conference, Yale alumni set up booths to introduce various aspects of alumni relations, including traditional events such as class reunions and more unique programs such as Yale's global day of service, regional club activities and community service fellowships.

Yale alumni John Scales said university graduates have commemorated the Yale Day of Service on the second weekend of May every year since 2009. Yale alumni, family members and friends – no matter where they live – are invited to volunteer at meaningful events in their local community. It's a part of Yale's tradition of "service to others," he said.

"Yale's greatest accomplishment is the giving and volunteer work of Yalies all over the world – without thought of reward other than the warm and wonderful feeling of knowing that what we have done was right," Scales said.

Vice President Linda Lorimer shared Scales' pride in the tradition.

"We have one day when over 3,000 graduates, wherever they live around the world, will turn out and help perhaps orphanages, or perhaps with underprivileged schools. It's really a wonderful way of giving back to the community," she said.

According to Lorimer, the Association of Yale Alumni (AYA), which serves as an umbrella organization for Yale College Class alumni groups, Yale clubs and many other organizations, is all volunteer-driven. The graduates get no money for their efforts.

"[For this year's Yale Global Alumni Leadership Exchange program,] we have about 250 individuals here. They are all volunteers. They all come here and pay their own way with the hope of [what they talk] being 'ambassadors' for Yale," she said.

Lorimer said developing this kind of extended friendship among graduates is important. She said she expected some Chinese universities to find the methods interesting, but also predicted others would question whether they would work in such a different culture.

Today's World Alumni Leadership Conference, co-hosted by Peking University, attracted administrators and teachers from Chinese universities across the country.

Zhou Yan, secretary of the Alumni Association of Tianjin University, pointed out the gap between alumni efforts at Yale and those at Chinese universities.

"Yale's alumni activities have gone beyond what we take in a traditional way," Zhou said. "They care for the community or even people's livelihood. They are concerned with social issues such as poverty and women's development. They work not only on behalf of a university, but on the level of a global community."

Chinese universities need to organize more meaningful activities for their alumni and provide a wider platform for them to contribute or give back to the universities and society, she said.