Three Michigan State University students have been awarded a U.S. Department of State Critical Language Scholarship to study critical needs languages this summer.
Allison Apland will study Arabic in Jordan; Kyra Stephenson will study Arabic in Oman; and Elizabeth Witcher will study Chinese in China.
They are among approximately 550 U.S. undergraduate and graduate students who received the scholarship. CLS participants will spend seven to 10 weeks in intensive language institutes this summer in one of 13 countries to study Arabic, Azerbaijani, Bangla, Chinese, Hindi, Korean, Indonesian, Japanese, Persian, Punjabi, Russian, Turkish or Urdu.
The CLS Program is part of a U.S. government effort to expand the number of Americans studying and mastering critical foreign languages. It provides fully funded, group-based intensive language instruction and structured cultural enrichment experiences. CLS Program participants are expected to continue their language study beyond the scholarship and apply their critical language skills in their future professional careers.
Selected finalists for the 2014 CLS Program hail from all 50 states, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia and represent more than 200 institutions of higher education from across the U.S., including public and private universities, liberal arts colleges, minority-serving institutions and community colleges.