Pomona College’s Asian Studies program has established a set of grants and prizes for its students, made possible by an anonymous donor who gave a $200,000 gift to the program over the course of the last year.
According to history professor and Asian Studies coordinator Samuel H. Yamashita, the gift will support a new set of awards for distinctive coursework and projects conducted by students.
“It’s first of all a way of recognizing good students; there’ll be a first-year prize, second-year prize, third-year prize, fourth-year prize,” Yamashita said. “We already have a senior thesis prize called the Chanya Butts Senior Thesis Prize, and we’re going to create a parallel senior essay prize.”
The new grants will also fund travels to conferences, internships and research. Yamashita said that he hoped to provide a summer project grant to every rising senior majoring in Asian Studies.
“This gift was given for current use,” he said. “We think that with careful management, this gift will last for five or six years.”
These new opportunities will integrate into the long history of Pomona’s Asian Studies program. In his essay “Asian Studies at American Private Colleges 1808-1990,” Yamashita delineated the founding of the program in historical context.
“After World War II … Asia had to be rediscovered, this time as an object of academic inquiry,” Yamashita wrote. “Colleges also began to hire Asia specialists … Pomona may have been the first.”
According to Pomona’s webpage recording the institution’s history, the Oriental Studies program at Pomona College was established in 1936, one of the first to be created at an American liberal arts college.
“Up to now, probably 70 percent or 80 percent [of our Asian Studies students] have gone to graduate school, law school, or the State Department of Foreign Service,” Yamashita said. “On a college level, I think we have one of the best Asian Studies programs in the country.”
Serena Li PO ’26, an Asian Studies major and head liaison, said that she cherishes the department’s interdisciplinary curriculum and academic freedom. She sees the new gift as arriving at a particularly opportune time.
“There’s been a lot of concern recently around budgets for student activities and research,” Li said. “It’s nice to know that there’s this opportunity for students to be able to receive funding and pursue what they want to pursue.”
Li emphasized how grants and scholarships from the Asian Studies program have eased the financial burden of her academic travels, enabled her to focus on academic pursuits and opened up new possibilities.
“I really appreciate that, and I hope more students will be able to have that experience,” Li said.