CALA Scholarships

To encourage professional and leadership development in Chinese American librarianship, CALA offers several scholarships each year to students, new librarians, and library school faculty.

The CALA Scholarship of Library and Information Science, $1,000

• one student

The Sheila Suen Lai Scholarship of Library and Information Science, $500

• one student

Lisa Zhao Scholarship, $400 each

• one student and one new librarian (with less than five years’ experience)

The Huang Tso-ping and Wu Yao-yu Research and Scholarship, for faculty and students at Wuhan University, China

• $400, one library school faculty member
• $200, two students

Scholarship applications are open between January and March. To be eligible, applicants must be of Chinese descent and a CALA member. For the student scholarships, applicants should be full-time students who are currently or will soon be enrolled in an ALA-accredited library and information science program. Recipients are expected to serve on at least one CALA committee.

The application deadline for 2022 is March 15. To apply, fill out the application form and submit it online. Include the following materials in your application:

• Curriculum vita
• A personal statement (no more than 300 words) that describes your interest and any relevant work, including non-course educational experience, volunteer work, and teaching, etc. Highlight what you can bring to the profession and CALA, in particular what you have done that reflects your potential for leadership. 
• An unofficial academic transcript, either from the institution where you are currently enrolled in a LIS program or where you received your bachelor’s degree if you are not yet enrolled in a LIS program.
• Verification of admission to an ALA-accredited graduate LIS program as a full-time student and/or proof of current full-time enrollment status. 
• Two letters of reference. The reference letter form can be downloaded here. Use this link to upload the letters.

For questions concerning the scholarships and/or the application process, feel free to contact the CALA Scholarship Committee.

Lijuan Xu (co-chair), xul@lafayette.edu

Qinghua Xu (co-chair), xqhiris@gmail.com

Jia He, jiahe@southalabama.edu

Susen Shi, susenshi@nypl.org

Wei Zhang, zhangw94@mcmaster.ca

Scholarships Awarded in the Past