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CALA Scholarships

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

  • The CALA Scholarship of Library and Information Science and Sage & JCLC Inc. NALCo LIS Student Scholar Program: $1000, one student for CALA; The Sage & JCLC Inc. NALCo LIS Student Scholar Program: $1000, two students
  • The Sheila Suen Lai Scholarship of Library and Information Science, $500: one student
  • 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

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.

Sage & JCLC Inc. NALCo LIS Student Scholar Program (two) recipients are required to write 500-800 words blog posts at some point during the school year articulating how the award benefitted them among other items and to be posted on a Sage blog and at other locations as requested by CALA. (This scholarship is a pilot joint-program for 2022-2023).

The application deadline for 2023 is March 30. To apply, fill out the application form and submit it online. Include the following materials in your application:

  • Curriculum vitae
  • 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.

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

Angel Tang angel.tang@wisc.edu,

Tiffany Cheung tcheun93@uwo.ca,

Alexandra Wong wongalex@yorku.ca