Michigan State University senior Elena Herfi has won a Boren Undergraduate Scholarship to study Arabic in Amman, Jordan during the 2013-2014 academic year.
Established by the National Security Education Program, the Boren awards are designed to build a broader and more qualified pool of U.S. citizens with foreign language and international skills. This year, 947 students applied for the Boren Scholarship and 161 students were chosen as recipients.
Herfi, a graduate of Grosse Ile Township High School, is dual majoring in comparative cultures and politics in James Madison College and Arabic in the College of Arts and Letters. She plans to study cultural anthropology in graduate school and pursue a career in the foreign service after earning a graduate degree.
In addition to studying Arabic in her classes, Herfi studied abroad in Morocco and participated in the Arabic Flagship Programs at MSU and the University of Texas at Austin.
Boren Scholarships provide up to $20,000 to U.S. undergraduate students to study abroad in areas of the world that are critical to U.S. interests and underrepresented in study abroad, including Africa, Asia, Central and Eastern Europe, Eurasia, Latin America and the Middle East.
The National/International Fellowships and Scholarships Office at MSU, administered by the Honors College, helps interested students.