 So, we will be starting out with this land acknowledgement from San Jose State University. And while we gather at San Jose State University, we're gathered on the ethno-historic tribal territory of the Tamien Oloni, who were the direct ancestors of the lineages enrolled in the Moekma Oloni tribe and who were missionized into Mission Santa Clara, San Jose, and Dolores. The lands on which San Jose State University is established was and continues to be of significance to the Moekma Oloni tribe. We also recognize that the ancestors of the Moekma Oloni constructed and maintained the three Bay Area missions. Our campus extends to surrounding areas that held a tupenteque, a traditional roundhouse, which were once located at the historic Lope Inigo's land-grant rancho posolmi, pardon me, ipositas de las animas, little wells of souls, and also Marcelo Pio and Cristobal's land-grant rancho ulystac, which were places of celebration and religious ceremonies as well as nearby ancestral heritage shell mounds that served as the tribe's traditional cemetery sites and territorial monuments. San Jose State University also just desires to honor the military service of the Moekma who have honorably served overseas during World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Desert Storm, Iraq, and who are still serving in the United States Armed Forces today. So welcome to this information session. The Bridging Knowledge Scholarship Program is made possible by a generous Laura Bush grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services and multiple collaborative partnerships between the American Indian Library Association, the Alaska Library Network, the Alaska State Library, the Sustainable Heritage Network, and the San Jose State University School of Information. The IMLS is an independent federal agency that provides library grants, USIM grants, policy development, and research. The American Indian Library Association, or ALA, is an affiliate of the American Library Association and is a member action group that focuses on improving library and information services for Native American Indians and Alaska Natives, breaking down public perceptions of who Native Americans are, elevating conversations around Native American issues, promoting Native education, literacy, and community. The Alaska Library Network is a non-profit and tax-asempt organization working on behalf of all Alaska libraries that is supported by funds from the IMLS through the LSTA and member libraries, and it sustained through a generous work effort of Alaska Library Network member librarians, the Alaska State Library, and the University of Alaska Consortium Library. The Alaska State Library provides access to government information for state agencies and other researchers, collects, organizes, preserves, and makes accessible materials that document the history of Alaska and promotes the development of libraries, archives, and museums statewide for benefit of all Alaskans. The Sustainable Heritage Network is a collaborative project that complements the work of indigenous peoples global age, preserve, share, and manage cultural heritage and knowledge, and is an answer to the pressing need for comprehensive workshops, online tutorials, and web resources dedicated to the life cycle of digital stewardship. And San Jose State School of Information is a fully online grad school that prepares individuals for careers as information professionals, and we have been continuously accredited by the American Library Association since 1969. And so here is our agenda for today. Well, we welcome you to this one-hour presentation, and we hope the presentation will be informative to you as you think about making a decision about applying for your MLIS with San Jose State and the Bridging Knowledge Scholarship Program. So we'll cover more about the scholarship, student benefits, how to apply, about the school, and about our MLIS program. We're going to offer you a Q&A, and then we will recap due dates for the scholarship. And then this recording will be available on the Bridging Knowledge website. It may take one to two weeks for that link to be active. And now it's time to meet your Bridging Knowledge Scholarship team, and I'll ask some members of the Bridging Knowledge team to quickly introduce themselves. And we'll start with Cindy first. Hello, thank you. So nice to see you run online today. I'm Cindy Hall. I am the Director of Branch Operations at the Kansas City Public Library, board trustee for the Freedom to Read Foundation, standing member of the Indigenous Matters Section for IFLA, the International Federation of Library Associations, and I am the past president of the American Indian Library Association. I am Dakota of the Isantea, Nebraska, and it's so nice to see you run. I look forward to meeting you. Hello, everyone. My name is Julie Niederhauser, and I work at the Alaska State Library. I'm the public library coordinator for the Alaska State Library. And in this role, I provide consulting, services to public librarians throughout the state, and I also work with library boards. I'm so glad you're all here. Hi, everyone. I'm Valerie. I'm one of the co-directors. And right now I'm the program manager for the Impact Library and Native Library Initiative with the Little Free Libraries. It's a nonprofit. I'm also a circle of learning scholar and high school, SJSU alumni. So really excited to have you. I am Nubiaq, and I live in Seward, which is the farthest out of Everlift. So nice to meet you. Hello, everyone. I'm Jodi Jakes, I'm the associate director of the Alaska Library Network. Nice to see you here. All right. I think we're now ready to introduce the SJSU iSchool team, which will be supporting our bridging knowledge learners. So Dr. Viya Gron. Hello, everyone, and welcome. I'm so glad you're here. I'm an assistant professor with the iSchool School of Information, and my research teaching focuses on diversity, cultural competence, and also on cultural intelligence and the phenomena in libraries. So welcome. And Dr. Viya Gron will be the faculty advisor for our bridging knowledge scholars, so you'll get to work with her when you have questions about planning your electives through the program. And I'm also a moderator for today's session. My name is Sheila, and I'm a student outreach specialist for School of Information. I work closely on graduate advising, outreach, and student success tools for our students. I'm formerly, I worked on the Circle of Learning grant, which was another four-year IMLS funded grant supporting indigenous library science students from 2010 to 2014. And I'm also a graduate of the program as well. I earned my MLIS way back in 1999 and worked as a credentialed teacher librarian. So it's a pleasure to meet all of you today. Another member of our student support team was not able to be with us today, but I wanted to introduce Taryn Reiner, who just joined us about six months ago, and her background is in counseling. And she tells us that she was raised with Native American and Native Hawaiian cultures, both in New Mexico and in Hawaii. And she works closely with our newly admitted students and also students, any students experience academic difficulties. She also provides one-to-one coaching on goal setting for these students. So I think at this time, I'll turn it over to Cindy. Great. Thank you, Kat, for the landing page for the Bridging Knowledge Scholarship. And on that webpage, you will find a lot of information on how to apply, who's eligible to apply, and the most important part, the deadline. So for the Bridging Knowledge Program, we're going to ask for applications to be received by November 15. And the most important part is to make sure that everyone is applying to San Jose State by that December 1 deadline. Another important component is making sure that you have your support letters that are accompanying your applications so we can have that information as we move forward. So this is a three-year program sponsored by the Institute of Museum and Library Services. This project will provide financial and scaffolded student support to 15 American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian students. You will earn an online Masters of Library and Information Science degree from San Jose State as well as an Advanced Certificate in Strategic Management of Digital Assets and Services. The classes will begin spring of 2022. So we're looking to move this all forward with a kickoff in January. If you have any questions, feel free to email me at bkscholar21atgenial.com. And I will place that link in the chat as well. So when we were preparing to write the IMLS Grant for Bridging Knowledge, we conducted key informant interviews with Indigenous librarians who had received their MLIS and are currently working in the field. And analysis from those interviews revealed that securing reliable financial assistance that covers more than just tuition was one of the critical conditions necessary for Indigenous graduate students to be successful. So Bridging Knowledge, this scholarship will provide students with financial assistance that includes tuition, books, technology stipends, internships, library association memberships, and travel stipends. So specifically, what that means is that students enrolled in the program will receive over $7,000 each year of the project for tuition and textbooks. And they will receive a technology stipend in the amount of $2,000 the first year and $1,000 in years two and three. And those technology stipends funds can be used to purchase a laptop, a desktop computer, printer headset, and to cover your associated broadband service fees. The project funds will fund 10 eight-week-long paid internships at tribal museums or archives, at state libraries or other institutions. And those internships will include funds for travel and for housing and for a per diem. So it's a fantastic opportunity. And then as I mentioned, there's a real focus on professional development. So we've included a stipend for professional development. And students will receive $250 each year to use for additional professional development webinars, training, conference attendance, or professional dues. And then finally, each student will also receive ALA student membership. So it's a really fantastic program. And we really took what the key informants told us to heart and tried to make it successful. Thank you. So I'm having slow internet. I'm looking for the link to put into chat for the Joint Conference of Librarians of Color Conference. This is going to be held October 5th to the 9th at St. Pete's Beach in Florida. This is a conference that is held every four years and library professionals from all over come and attend this conference. We anticipate about 1,200 attendees for this conference. And it's going to be a wonderful opportunity for this cohort of students to meet in person, to gather at this conference, to network, and go through mock interviews and to meet professionals from all across the LIS field. And we will also be attending the Association of Tribal Archives Library and Museum Conference in 2023 that date and location has yet to be determined. ATOM is a wonderful annual conference. It provides a great learning opportunity as well as cultural programs and informational events to support everyone in your career. Our closing workshop, of course, we are going to celebrate your success and gather in California at your graduation and also have that opportunity for us to move forward in a good way towards your future in libraries. If you have any questions about conference travel, feel free to send me an email and detailed information will be rolled out throughout the program as well so students have that information. And I think we're moving over to Valerie for the next slide. All right. OK, so a little bit more about some of the support for the scholarship recipients. So we will have fellow students who are often like the best resources and the best supporters and you also have just amongst the leadership a lot of people who have experienced online learning and going through the whole process. So that's really helpful. There will be an extensive network of leaders and professionals who are passionate about supporting and elevating indigenous digital and information scholarship and work. So there is a lot of us that are really excited about this program and can't wait to help out. And there will be both virtual and in-person gathering centered on supporting indigenous practice and studies in the field. Some opportunities to develop to contribute to a community of practice and to develop and share professional skills and scholarship will also be may threat the whole entire program. OK, it's a little challenging to try to do this in the office here. OK, so one of the really unique things about the bridging project is that not only is it a scholarship that provides deep support for students to get their MLIS and we have this real focus on mentorships and peer-to-peer learning and learning from each other. But there's a supplemental curriculum that's going to go along with students receiving their more foundational MLS curriculum. And it's going to be developed by alumni from the circle of learning. Those students that received their MLIS from SJSU about 10 years ago and have been working in the field in a wide variety of capacities. So those quarterly webinars will be led by the alumni and will feature all aspects of librarianship and working in tribal libraries and working in archives and Indigenous scholarship. And then they will be recorded and added to the Sustainable Heritage Network. So the Sustainable Heritage Network is a collaborative project that complements the work of Indigenous people globally to preserve, share, and manage cultural heritage and knowledge. And it's a platform where anyone can go and look at recorded conference sessions, online tutorials on all aspects of digital stewardship. So what's really unique about this is we're developing a curriculum specifically to support Indigenous librarians. It will be developed by Indigenous librarians and then it'll be available for everyone to take advantage of. Thank you, Julie. So we shared the link for the landing page for bridging knowledge. And to be eligible to apply to bridging knowledge, we are accepting applications from applicants who identify as American Indian, Alaska Native, or Native Hawaiian. And you need to, like I said before, apply with San Jose State. That's a very important part of this process. So if you have any questions, feel free to email me and I will be happy to get right back to you. And I believe we are moving over to Valerie again for the next slide. All right, so some important dates to be aware of. Is that where we are? Yeah, okay, so some important dates to be aware of is our deadline is on the November 15th and the semester 2022 deadline will be, it closes December 1st on 2021. So the first semester of the first day of the spring semester will be Wednesday, January 26th of 2022. And there is a early start information, one of the beginning courses that will become available earlier in January. So you can click on this link to find out a little bit more about the application process to the school, but we just wanna be sure that it wasn't confusing to kind of separate the application for the scholarship with the application to the school. So don't hesitate to ask if you have any questions. All right, so that's me again. So we wanted you to have an idea of who some of our, who is serving on our advisory committee. This is just really a sampling of the people. It includes those of us on the team that are with you today. And it includes people from Hawaii and Alaska and other people across the nation. The, both the committee and the subcommittees are made up of archived and library professionals, Indigenous leaders and scholars, Knowledge River alumni, which is another scholarship program. And the Circle of Learning alumni, San Jose State University alumni, academic instructors and trainers. And there's additional subcommittees with more people involved that include a recruitment committee, applicant committee, selection committee, supplemental curriculum committee and a mentoring committee. So there's a whole team of people supporting this project. Okay, I'm going to move fairly quickly through the next slides and we wanna make sure we leave enough time for Q and A at the end. So a little bit about admission to San Jose State's MLIS program. The admissions requirements are that applicants must have a regionally accredited bachelor's degree in any discipline with at least a 3.0 in your degree or in the last 60 semester or 90 quarter units of their entire academic record. And applicants do not need to submit a GRE nor do they need to submit references or a statement of purpose for the MLIS application. So it's very easy. You go onto our Cal State apply website and submit that electronically. You do need to have a general understanding of computers and technology. And we have some examples of this on our website and appropriate internet connection and software which if you're admitted to the Bridging Knowledge program you're going to receive support with that. And just a little bit of brief background about the school. I believe I mentioned earlier we are ALA accredited since 1969 and our teacher librarian credential program is also accredited by the California Teacher Commission. The school is led by our director, Dr. Anthony Chow and we've grown to be an award-winning industry pioneer in online instruction. And here are a few of our folks who have shared their stories with us. You can learn about them on our website. And then a little bit about San Jose State University. We were founded actually in 1857 as originally as a state teacher school. And we are really centered in the heart of Silicon Valley. We were recently named the number one most transformative university in the nation by Money Mag. And here's a view of our beautiful Martin with their King, Jr. San Jose State City of San Jose Joint Use Library with our campus shown behind and it's facing the eastern foothills of the Santa Clara Valley. But most of our students never have to come to the physical campus because our library and technology services including dedicated library science liaison librarians they all work together to seamlessly support students completely remotely. Here's a little quick overview of our MLIS program. It's comprised of 43 semester units with 16 units of required courses and 27 units of electives. Now you can choose your electives from among 14 optional career pathways they're there for guidance. You can also receive a certificate in digital assets. So more on that later and you will be given a choice to complete either a three unit e-portfolio class or thesis and nine out of 10 of our grads do choose that e-portfolio option because it's only a semester long. And this is more about our advanced certificate in strategic management of digital assets and services. So this is a certificate that you'd be earning within your MLIS degree with no additional charge. Again, we're known among the iSchools for a really wide range of electives and pathways and just a glance through our schedule of classes page would reveal an amazing array of elective topics such as artificial intelligence in the library, information security, Python, problem solving data, digital copyright, project management, digital forensics for archivists, metadata, intellectual freedom, early childhood literacy, medical and health sciences librarianship. And we have so many more topics and you can browse our career pathways and view a list of elective topics from the academic section of our MLIS program pages on our website to get more detailed information. And then every year our staff compiles an annual analysis of job listings in our field in our industry and these were some of the job titles that were found in that analysis. And I encourage you to download our free annual report it's called MLIS Skills at Work from our website. And the report covers many skills and trends that are most in demand by employers. And then I just included this image. This is actually our associate dean for academics who formerly led our school as director, Dr. Hirsch. This was at an in-person commencement event in San Jose a few years ago. And I chose this image because I think it really celebrates the feeling of community at our school because wherever you go in our profession whether it's at a library conference or reception or a virtual lecture, you're bound to meet other members of our iSchool family. And so we'll go through quickly some of the exit survey data on the next slide from our graduating students. So you can see what they found as the top factors for choosing our program. 96% of our exiting MLIS graduates from last fall indicated that they would recommend the program. So that's a great sign of quality. And that's not just what our students report, pardon me. A couple of years ago, the school also earned a prestigious award from the online learning consortium. So we continuously are updating and evaluating our curriculum in line with all the industry standards and we innovate and pioneer in the online space. Now this one is gonna be a little bit longer. So bear with me. We're gonna talk about cost. And cost is one factor in which you'll find us to be very competitive. Applicants apply to either our regular session program for those who live in the region's closest to Northern California and the Bay Area or they apply to special session for those who live outside of the state of California funded regular session attendance area which is postal zip codes 93900 through 95899. Now if applicants live outside of that zone, such as Southern California or another US state, then they would apply to our special session program which does not have access to campus services such as like housing, childcare, recreation, transit, medical services at our wellness center, et cetera. And so the special session students currently pay a per unit tuition fee of $474 per unit that they enroll in each semester. So the total tuition cost for special session is $20,382. Now students who come in as regular session, those are the local Northern California people, they would pay a flat rate per semester which includes campus services for up to six units in a semester or if they go 6.1 units and above per semester. And then the regular session students may also take summer session in special session. And so they're only gonna pay the per unit price for optional summer school classes because we only offer summer classes in special session. So the total cost if you live in the Bay Area, Northern California and you're admitted to regular session, it's going to differ depending on how many classes you take in a given semester. Whether you take summer school and then whether or not you request to permanently change to special session. We do have an option within a San Jose State for regular session students to request a permanent switch to special session once they're at or near 19 units in the program. Okay, and so I just have a little bit more info for this slide which is we wanna mention that we also have high school scholarships for new students. So you get more than welcome to apply for those in addition to the Bridging Knowledge Scholarship. And then we also link to outside scholarship resources and funding opportunities from other organizations on our website. And you could find this if you visit our website in the student resources section or from the hamburger menu which is in the top right hand corner of your browser when you're looking at our website which is another top factor from our graduating students. They consistently tell us the number one program strength is our flexibility. So you're going to have access to digital materials to do your studying day or night. Most of our classes are offered asynchronously which means you don't have to meet together in most of our classes at a specific time. You're offered full-time or part-time schedule. It's up to you every semester. You have up to seven years to complete our program. You could take one semester off. And then again, you can customize your electives with 14 career pathways and you can get optional internships for school credit. We offer virtual and site-based options. That another important part of joining our online learning community is that you'll take the responsibility to expand your professional network with other student colleagues. And we do have a robust and lively number of student chapters of professional organizations. You can see on this slide. We even have a first-generation student group for people who are first in their families to receive a graduate degree. We have many student groups that you can become involved with including our student research journal if you'd like to get your work published. Again, lots of supports for online students. We have a whole team of student services professionals here to help you. We have an accessible education center. We have poster sessions at conferences. Those are a lot of fun. The school provides MLIS students with a free membership as well in a professional organization of their choice. We have peer mentors in our program. We have a wonderful career center that will help you determine your goals and help you job search. We have a veteran center here and online writing tutors. The list goes on and on. So finally, just in summary, we think and we hope that you'll find us to be a very welcoming, supportive and inclusive learning community here at the iSchool. And we hope that you'll consider joining us and applying for the Bridging Knowledge Scholarship. All the steps are available on our website. You navigate to our Cal State Apply Application. And then once you've submitted your application, you'll make sure to turn in your transcripts from your degrees to SJSU graduate admissions by the December 20th document deadline. If you're applying for FAFSA at the same time, make sure you do that right after you apply to the MLIS program because it could take up to 14 weeks for that aid package to process. And then yeah, for other admissions-related questions, admissions at sjsu.edu can help you out. They also offer live chat service. And as well as the School of Information, we offer two hours a day of live chat to help you with any questions. If you need assistance when you're working on your application, we'll be glad to help you out. And then this is just in summary. If you have questions specific to the scholarship and applying to the Bridging Knowledge Scholarship, please email bkscholar21 at gmail.com. If you have questions about MLIS program, application, the curriculum, et cetera, please contact me at iSchool at sjsu.edu. And then at this point, I think we're all available to open up to Q&A. So and yeah, let's see what questions you have for us. You can either type your questions in the chat or if you're comfortable and if you'd like to turn on your mic and let us know, we are available to help with any questions you may have. Looks like the first question has come in in the chat. Is it recommended that Bridging Knowledge Scholarship or recipients still apply for financial aid? I didn't catch how much of the scholarship would cover the cost of the entire program. I believe that this Bridging Knowledge Scholarship is for up to three years. Perhaps one of the BK team members would like to address that. Whether you take longer than the three years. Hi, this is Julie, I can address that. The Bridging Knowledge Scholarship should cover all of your associated costs for the online program if you're able to complete it within, as Julie said, the three years. Some people may need additional funds for whatever reasons and they're always in, we don't know what everyone's individual situation is. So it may be advisable for them to look for additional funding, but that's definitely an individual decision. So I don't know if there's a downside to applying for additional financial aid or seeing whether or not you apply. If there's any additional financial aid available to you, it may be worthwhile to do that. But we kind of developed the program so that folks wouldn't necessarily have to seek additional funds if they were able to complete the online program within three years. So hopefully that addresses the question. Hi, I'm the one who answered or who asked the question. It did. I was just curious about since the cost depends on how many units you take if someone were to decide to take more than the average if it would mean they would have to find other alternatives to fund those units, I guess. Julie, is there a cap on how many units each bridging knowledge student will be allowed to be covered per semester or if they wanted to go at a quicker pace through the program they can? Well, I think in our grant we wrote that they would receive, I believe it was $7,544 per year for tuition and books and the tuition would go directly, many for the tuition would go directly to the university and then the rest would be available to the student as a, not sure if it was a reimbursement or a stipend for the books. So I believe anything in addition to that. But you know, I don't know, I think we're still new in it and we're still trying to figure it out. So I don't know, I can't really say a definitively whether or not we would allow a student to take more. Cindy, do you have an opinion on that? Well, we kind of wanted the students to go through the program as a cohort together offering support and what have you. Of course it is up to the individual based on their needs and their outside employment situation, housing, et cetera. I think that definitely we wanna make sure that we're supporting everyone's success so that they can really maximize not only their productivity but their understanding as they're moving through this master's level program. Going back real quick to applying for financial aid, it is another consideration perhaps that if we receive more applications than the 15 scholarships we have available, there's the possibility that we may not be able to fund everyone who is interested in attending this program. And so if they would want to move forward with their library school application, they would need to secure funding elsewhere. So that's probably something to keep in mind. I think we had another question in chat regarding the internships. So Julie was sharing the amount of paid internships that we had written into the grant. And so we're going to offer a paid internship opportunity for each of the 15 students that go through this program. I hope that answers your question there. No, you don't need to complete 10, eight week long internships that would be the investment of your time on top of going to school, living your life and perhaps working. So this is a program for non-traditional adult students who have responsibilities across the board. We really wanted to make sure that we are providing everyone with the support they need. So that they can be successful and really prepare themselves for the career. Katrina, you have your hand raised. Yeah, I'm just so pumped for this program. It sounds amazing. And I'm assuming that there will be more than 15 qualified applicants for it. I mean, cause what an opportunity. My question is if somebody that's elected as in the cohort of 15 people to start in the spring of next year, if one of those people has to drop out of the program for whatever reason, will their funding become available for like a backup student? Does that make sense? Or is it just for you have to be selected initially and if you don't get it this time, then that's it. That's a very good question. I don't know that I can speak to that but our hope is that we have 15 strong applicants who are prepared and ready to begin the program and successfully complete it. But life does happen and you never know what could transpire along the way. In the past circle of learning program, I know we did have a student or two that needed to prolong and take that semester off. So we will be flexible with providing them with the support they need. So again, they can be successful in this program in regards to reallocating the funds. I don't believe that that is a step we would take at this point depending upon how many students this would impact. We haven't really planned to have a reallocation but if another bridging knowledge member has another idea or more information, please unmute and share that. So, Eka Trina, that's a really great question. We are bound by the rules of the IMLS. They're only gonna allocate a set amount of funding for each year of the project, funds that aren't spent. Ultimately, we'll have to go back to the IMLS. If a student starts the program and then is unable to complete it, that would certainly be a discussion for the applicant. We have a committee that is designed to help select the applicant. So I would expect that if we have a really great group of candidates and not all of them are selected, there may be one or two that they kind of designated as potential future candidates should somebody not be able to complete the program. I think that's kind of what normally happens in these kind of scholarship programs. The goal is that we are gonna support the select candidates that are gonna complete the program. We're gonna be offering support throughout it and the goal is to get as many people as possible to complete but that's an excellent question. Okay, thank you. Thank you. And Jesse Morgan has their hand written. Yes, thank you. Thank you. I'm so excited for this opportunity. I am about a year away from a bachelor's. It's a opportunity when I finish my bachelor's for this program and is there anything that you recommend considering for it? I'm sorry, I don't know that I caught your question. So you said you still have a year to go to complete your bachelor's program? That's correct. Okay. Is there any, will this opportunity be available and or is there anything I can do to prepare? Well, for this funding opportunity, it is for current applicants that are with the eligibility that they already possessed their bachelor's degree and that their GPA is the 3.0 or higher. So this funding program is for the spring of 2022. If applicants do not have the bachelor's already completed by the time they move forward with the application process, they would not be eligible at this time. Does that answer the question? Yes, is it offered every year? No. The last time this was offered was 10 years ago with a similar program that was called the Circle of Learning. So this program team has been working on this grant program for about a year and a half before we received the award. So the funding that's available is available at this time for this cohort that would be going through the program starting in the spring. Thank you. Thank you. And Jessie, I just wanna add, Sheila shared, there's SJSU has other financial scholarships available to students. So if you don't qualify for this one because of the alignment of your graduation date and the start of this program, there may be other scholarships that just wouldn't be this particular one. I'll add that those scholarships both from San Jose State and also outside organizations are on our website. We have links to other outside diversity scholarships such as Spectrum Scholarship from American Library Association. That's a diversity initiative of ALA. So please do look at other opportunities as well to help. I know we had many Circle of Learning students that piggybacked multiple scholarships from different organizations to get them through the program in addition to their Circle of Learning funding. So that's an option. Thank you both for adding that. And I am also a Spectrum Scholar and happy to provide information about that great program. I put the link in the chat. Also the Lincoln Library Association offers an annual Virginia Matthews Scholarship opportunity. So that's something else that you need to look into. Okay, it looks like we have a few more questions. Summer is an optional term here at San Jose State. We do offer classes in the summer. You can take the summer off or you can take classes. It's optional as far as your coverage in your one year of tuition. You'd have to speak with the Bridging Knowledge folks as far as planning out how you're gonna use that funding over the spring, summer and fall. And then there was another question about travel assistance from Hawaii to the East Coast. Does any of our project staff want to address that? Yes, we have taken into consideration the travel costs outside of the per diem for students in all areas. So that funding will be available and will be provided to students as they travel for these conferences and gatherings. Okay, the next question is for the scholarship team. Will you be asking applicants to provide tribal membership documentation? No, we will not. Okay, there was another question. Application process does not include inclusion of a resume or CV. Is that something we should submit? I'm not clear if that's a question about the Bridging Knowledge Scholarship or SJSU. And I'll just say for SJSU, MLIS application you do not need to submit a resume or CV. So I'll hand it over to the BK team to answer the remaining part of that question. Is just statement of purpose or are you requiring any CV or resume? We are not requiring, I'm pretty sure. I'm drawing a blank right now, but I'm pretty sure we don't require a resume or a CV. It is just a statement of purpose and the references to letters of support from a professional and a professional, I believe it's a professional and a personal reference. Okay, the next question is, are current SJSU MLIS students welcome to apply for the scholarship or is it only for new incoming students? Anyone on the scholarship team? I don't know that we discussed that. I'm trying to see in the chat where that was for the specific question. Yeah, I'm sorry, I've missed that. So is this someone who's already enrolled? Yeah, so the question is, if it's a student who's already enrolled in the MLIS program at San Jose State, are they eligible to apply for the Bridging Knowledge Scholarship as a already continuing student or is the scholarship only valid for those who are joining the program in spring 2022? Julie, do you have any information about that? Yeah, I think the intent was for a cohort to develop a cohort of students that would support one another as they went through the process. That being said, if there's only 13 applicants and I think it would definitely be something to take into consideration. So if somebody was willing to apply and they met the criteria of this project, I would encourage them to submit the application but just to understand that the intent was that we would be shepherding this group of students throughout the three-year project. Because there's so many benefits of going through all three years. There's just so many wonderful experiences that have been planned for these students. And so to miss out on that would actually be really kind of unfortunate. So just to understand what the intent was. And so then there was another question. Ekatrina has her hand up, go ahead. Thank you. I think that the specialized training in digital access management is really awesome. However, I've been working in a public library for seven years and I'm just, I guess my question is, do I need to be able to demonstrate that I'm immediately gonna be able to use this training in digital asset management in order to qualify for the scholarship? I mean, I have a lot of ideas about how to indigenize public library services where I work, but that may or may not include culturally specific digital assets. So I'm just wondering how to temper my expectations. Given where the direction that I'm already headed versus what looks like part of the focus of these scholarships are. So I guess to maybe clarify, is it required that we will immediately be able to use our digital asset management skills upon completing our MLIS? Like, I mean, do I need to be working at the Burke Museum or the Alaska Syrupal State Museum? Or would you consider someone working at a public library or not a non-tribal library? Absolutely, I think we would consider librarians from all types of libraries. I think that's the beautiful thing about our profession is that you can get this foundational training and apply it in academic, in a public, in a special, in a tribal, in a combined school public. The digital asset management, those skills, I work as a consultant and that kind of knowledge comes in handy with the online courses and things that I teach. So it's very applicable in a lot of different ways. And the thing about training is once you have this background of understanding, you see more opportunities to actually utilize it in different ways that may not be aware, you may not be aware of now. And once you have that knowledge, people will come to you oftentimes and suggest working with you on some project that may be a little bit outside of even your scope of your library. So the idea is that we're building skills that people will be able to utilize in all kinds of different library settings. So I guess the answer is you do not need to necessarily apply it right away. We are providing those internships so that people can work in a setting. You mentioned working in a lot in a museum. We're hoping that people will be able to have internships that take them outside of the type of library that they're working now and open up those opportunities for them to work in a completely different setting and experience what that's like and be supported in that. Because that's just really valuable. That's part of your professional development is to see yourself working in all these different types of settings. So does that answer your question? It does, thank you, Madam. Thank you. Well, I see that we've reached the hour of three o'clock. I wanted to thank all of the panelists and the project team members for joining us in this webinar today, as well as all of our participants. Please do reach out to the Bridging Knowledge Scholarship Team at BKScholar21 at gmail.com. I think that you've all been provided links. You can reach me at ischool at sjsu.edu for questions about MLIS program or applications. So just final thoughts, thank you so much for your participation today. In this session, we will have a link to the recording on the Bridging Knowledge Scholarships Portal as well as San Jose State's YouTube presence. Please do follow up with us with any questions and we encourage you to reach out at any time.