WJA celebrates 25th anniversary, awards $25,000 as scholarship

The Women’s Jewelry Association (WJA) planned to celebrate its 25th anniversary by awarding $25,000 as scholarships to 14 students from 11 different schools across the nation. It also improvised on its design competition, by introducing two changes. Lisa Slovis Mandel, the WJA National Scholarship chair said, “For the first time, we offered two different scholarships: the traditional Designer scholarship that is based on slide entries of finished pieces, and the new Non-Designer category, which was essay based. The latter category was targeted towards students training to become bench jewelers, appraisers, gemologists, retailers and more. The second change was that the application and the jury processes were done online.”

This is the 24th year, wherein the WJA has sanctioned scholarships to deserving students preparing for careers in the fine jewellery and watch industries. The 2008 Scholarship funds were raised from proceeds of WJA’s Silent Auction held during its annual Awards for Excellence gala in 2007, contributions from companies and individuals, including Marilyn DaSilva Fund and the WJA San Diego Chapter. The scholarship committee, and jury, included Lisa Slovis Mandel, Chair, Jane Goodman Baum, Jayne Schultz, Barbara Wasserstrom, Karen Janowski, Carole Diamond, and Anne Blumer.

The scholarships were distributed as :Designer Category Scholarship Recipients: $6,000 June Herman Scholarship to Christine Alaniz for her creation "Pod Linkage", $5,000 Scholarship to Evelyn Huang for “Cometes”, Amy Hamai got the $3,500 Scholarship for design “Clasp”, Rebekah Frank $2,500 Scholarship for her design “Raphide”, Clara Cho $1,500 Scholarship, Carrie Metheny and Aliyah Gold received the $1,000 Scholarships, Molly Gabbard, Ryu-Hee Kim, Lindsey Eisentraut got the $500 Scholarship. In the non-designer category, Sophia Connie Shen got the $1,000 Scholarship, Marlyn Martinez Marrero and Eriko Kojo won $750 Scholarships, Louisa Green got $500 Scholarship.