Scholarship Mission
Section 115.2 of the ChABSA bylaws authorizes and empowers the council to use finances in furtherance of the association’s purposes. A primary purpose of the association as defined in section 101.2 is to “foster and promote biological safety as a scientific discipline through education,
research, and professional development.” Towards this end, ChABSA has created a scholarship program available for undergraduate and graduate students and ChABSA members to be used for ChABSA sponsored events, including technical seminars, workshops, and the scientific symposium.
Scholarship SOP
1. The ChABSA council will approve continuance of the scholarship program as well as its SOP each operating year by majority vote.
2. A dedicated informational page on the ChABSA website will include a description of the scholarship programs as well as downloadable application forms.
3. A scholarship committee chaired by a council member will vote on applications and forward recommendations to the ChABSA council for final decision. The scholarship committee will be composed of at least two other ChABSA members in good standing. The scholarship committee will not exceed five members (inclusive of the chair). Committee members are recruited by the council annually and may be appointed no more than three consecutive years. There is no limit to the number of appointments during a member’s lifetime.
4. The scholarship committee will run two distinct scholarship programs to ensure that ChABSA events throughout the operating year are promoted.
a. Technical Seminar Scholarship – One scholarship will be awarded per technical seminar. Applications will be due on the 1st of the month prior to the event.
b. Symposium/Workshop Scholarship – Two scholarships will be available to cover either the ChABSA symposium or ChABSA-sponsored workshop(s). Workshop awards may cover one or two 4-hour courses or an 8-hour course as requested by the applicant. Recipients can apply for travel costs if they are over 100 miles from the site of the event, but the total award cannot exceed $500. ChABSA will reserve and pay for the base price of any hotel room, but the recipient will be required to present a credit card for incidentals/damages. Applications will be due April 1st.
5. The scholarship committee will review all submissions to verify that they meet eligibility criteria and then will select the recipients based on the educational benefit to the recipient. Note that financial need will not be taken into consideration. An application can be excluded from the selection process if a majority of the committee members agree that the written description is not satisfactory, for example it appears that the applicant put no effort into writing the description.
6. The scholarship committee must meet a minimum of five times per operating year to review applications for each deadline (August 1st, October 1st, December 1st, February 1st, and April 1st). The chair should provide committee members at least one week to review materials prior to a meeting. Decisions will be made so that applicants will be notified no later than two weeks following the application deadline.
7. Applicants must be undergraduate or graduate students or ChABSA members to be eligible. ChABSA Council members and scholarship committee members are not eligible to receive scholarship awards.
8. An individual may only be awarded one scholarship from each program per ChABSA operating year.