Janet Ceja and Harrison Inefuku Awarded Mosaic Scholarships

SAA has awarded its new Mosaic Scholarship to two minority students pursuing graduate education in archival science: Janet Ceja of the University of Pittsburgh and Harrison Inefuku of the University of British Columbia. The Mosaic Scholarship provides $5,000 in financial aid and offers mentoring support to encourage students to pursue a career as an archivist.

The Mosaic Scholarship was established in 2008 by SAA to promote diversification of the American archives profession. The award is given to applicants who demonstrate potential for scholastic and personal achievement and who manifest a commitment both to the archives profession and to advancing diversity concerns within it. Ceja and Inefuku are the first recipients of the scholarship.

Ceja is enrolled as a second-year PhD candidate in the Library and Information Science program at the University of Pittsburgh. She entered Pitt’s archival studies program in 2007 after working as a film archivist in Los Angeles. Ceja says she will focus her dissertation research on “archival methodologies used by Latinos as a tool of social practice and resistance. My work raises questions about the development of archives by this group but at the same time, seeks to help attract underrepresented populations to archival work.”

Inefuku is a graduate student in the joint master of archival studies and master of library and information studies program at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. He earned an undergraduate degree in graphic design from the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California. “My primary research interest lies in the position of the National Archives of South Africa (and its predecessor) within the apartheid government and in post-apartheid South Africa,” says Inefuku.

In addition to the scholarship, awardees will receive a one-year membership in SAA and complimentary registration to the 2009 Joint Annual Meeting of SAA and the Council of State Archivists this August in Austin, Texas.