The Thomas Chen Family/Crystal Windows Endowment for Queens College School of Art recently sponsored at a reception and art exhibit on campus for the first student scholarship awards for studies in contemporary Asian art. Above right, left to right: Queens College President Frank Wu, Wang, and Thomas Chen. Photos courtesy of Dominick Totino.
QUEENS, NY, October 26, 2023 –Founder and Chairman of Crystal Window & Door Systems, Thomas Chen, was pleased to greet the winners of the very first scholarships awarded at Queens College under the Thomas Chen Family/Crystal Windows Endowment on October 18, 2023. The five scholarship recipients are students at Queens College’s School of Arts and were chosen through an artwork competition of many student submissions evaluated by a panel of outside jurors. The scholarships, totaling $21,000, were presented at a reception and student art exhibit at Klapper Hall Student Art Gallery on the Queens College main campus.
Above left; Thomas Chen, on right, with the scholarship winners. Also at the reception, internationally acclaimed author and journalist Ting Chian Wang received a Lifetime Achievement Award.
In 2021, Thomas Chen and Crystal Windows established a $1.1 million endowment for Queens College to support contemporary Asian art at the 4-year college with ongoing exhibit sponsorship, art student scholarships, and artist-in-residence programs. Last year, the first art exhibit sponsored by the endowment was opened to great acclaim. Plans are underway for the first artist-in-residence program and master classes for next year.
“I am so proud that the Chen Family/Crystal Windows endowment is supporting the Queens College art programs,” said Thomas Chen, speaking to the scholarship winners and guests at the reception. “Today we recognize these great endowment student scholarship winners, and it is very gratifying to be able to help them further their art education and future careers.”
A total of $21,000 in scholarship awards were presented this year. Four of the five scholarship winners are undergraduate students and received $3,500 each. The fifth winner is a graduate student and received $7,000. The scholarships will assist their exploration of contemporary Asian art, traditional Asian art techniques, and developing their own unique art styles.
On behalf of The Chen Family/Crystal Windows Endowment, Queens College President Frank Wu also presented a Lifetime Achievement Award to internationally noted author, journalist, and professor Ting Chian Wang, whose decades-long career began in Taiwan and continued later in New York. He is the author of many best-selling books, he worked extensively in newspaper and broadcast journalism, and taught at several universities in Taipei. Thomas Chen, who grew up in Taiwan, is an admirer of Wang’s work and was pleased to welcome the author to Queens College.
Queens College is one of the premier institutions in the New York City University System (CUNY), offering nearly 80 undergraduate majors and over 100 graduate degrees and certifications. The public college serves over 19,000 undergraduate and graduate students and is highly ranked in terms of academics and value by several national college surveys such as Princeton Review and US News and World Report. Located at 65-30 Kissena Boulevard in the South Flushing neighborhood of Queens, the college sits on 84 landscaped acres with a park-like suburban feel.
