2023 Distinguished Service Award
Dr. Xiaobing Li
Dr. Li has served our organization for a long time and has indeed made great contributions to the CHUS. In addition to serving as the former CHUS President and chairing numerous committees, Professor Xiaobing Li has diligently served as the sole editor of The Chinese Historical Review (CHR) for over four years. Demonstrating exceptional dedication to this esteemed scholarly, peer-reviewed journal, he independently manages the entire process—from receiving papers and finding peer-reviewers to contacting authors and liaising with the publisher. His outstanding commitment is particularly noteworthy, considering the typically substantial responsibilities associated with running a journal, which are often handled by a company or a group of scholars.
2022 Distinguished Service Award
Dr. Pingchao Zhu has served our organization for a long time, and indeed has made her great contributions to the CHUS. Besides having served on many committees for the CHUS in the past years, Professor Zhu has served and chaired the Committee for Academic Excellence under at least four CHUS presidents (under Drs. Xiaobing Li, Qiang Fang, Zhiguo Yang, and now Yi Sun). In this committee, Professor Zhu and her hard working colleagues spent a lot of time reading, reviewing, and recommending promising scholarships of our CHUS members. She was also a CHUS Board member between 2005 and 2007. She often participated in the CHUS organized activities and contributed to the organization in various ways. Overall, she is a distinguished member and a long-term servant of the CHUS.
2020 Distinguished Service Award
Dr. Xiaojia Hou, Associate Professor of History, San Jose State University
Dr. Dandan Chen, Associate Professor of History, Farmingdale State College
2017 Distinguished Service Award
Professor Danke Li, a faculty teaching Chinese history at Fairfield University in Connecticut, has been a member of the CHUS Board for three terms. During her tenure as the board member, she has worked diligently as the conference organizer. In this role, she has worked effectively with the American Historical Association (AHA) conference coordinators to retrieve relevant information. She has always sent out calls for panels and papers to CHUS members in a timely manner. She has collected information of panels, including abstracts, and inserted all relevant information manually into the AHA system. This is a tedious job, as it might take a week or so to insert all information by hand. Any minor errors might cause issues, which might lead to rejection by the AHA. In the past years, all CHUS panels under her management were accepted without any issues, which guaranteed the smooth and successful operations of the CHUS as a national scholarly organization. She has also served as a panel chair or a discussant. In addition, she has always offered her valuable services to the CHUS and its members whenever she is
needed.
Professor Xiaoping Cong, a faculty teaching Chinese history at the University of Houston, Texas, served as the CHUS president between 2011 and 2013. During her tenure as the leader of this organization, Dr. Cong worked diligently. She conducted reforms and created new venues for the routine operations of the CHUS. Furthermore, she updated the CHUS website by building a new server, and endeavored to reach out for public support for the CHUS. More importantly, she launched a fund-raising campaign, and amazingly obtained a few donations, amounting to more than four thousand dollars from outside donors, which enormously improved the CHUS’ financial situation. During her presidency, Dr. Cong did her best to support the CHUS journal, The Chinese Historical Review, and her efforts guaranteed the timely publication of the journal. She has also served as the chair or a member of various CHUS committees, and has been an active participant of other CHUS activities.
2012 Distinguished Service Award
This year’s Distinguished Service Award goes to Professor Zhang Jiayan. Professor Zhang Jiayan served as the CHUS secretary from 2009 to 2011. During his term he devoted a lot of his time and energy to establish a positive image of CHUS, to recruit new members, and to handle routine issues of the organization. His contributions were indispensable to the routine operations of the CHUS. Patrick Shan, former president of CHUS and nominator of Professor Zhang, praises that “Professor Zhang has set an example for his excellent service in our CHUS community. He truly deserves the Award for Distinguished Service, for which he has my highest recommendation.”
2011 Distinguished Service Award
Professor Patrick Fuliang Shan of Grand Valley State University was the recipient of the 2011 CHUS Distinguished Service Award, announced at the CHUS business meeting at the AHA on January 6, 2012. During the past several years, in addition to fulfilling his various responsibilities as CHUS president, Professor Shan took care of the filing of federal tax returns for CHUS, successfully reestablished CHUS’s tax exemption status, and re-registered CHUS with the state of Michigan, thereby enabling CHUS to maintain its legal status. To save legal fees for CHUS, Professor Shan spent countless hours researching relevant legal documents and preparing, submitting, and resubmitting application materials—tasks that are usually performed by lawyers.
