Seven students from the University of Wisconsin-Madison's College of Letters & Science have been selected for the U.S. Department of State Critical Language Scholarship (CLS) Program to study critical needs languages this summer.
The L&S recipients (with their majors, language and host country) are:
- Dennis Choi (History), Korean, South Korea
- Kaylah Cruz-Herrera (Political Science and African Languages and Literature), Arabic, Oman
- Lydia Greve (Political Science and Languages and Cultures of Asia), Hindi, India
- Madeline Ruid (Geography, Cartography and Geographic Information Systems and Languages and Cultures of Asia), Turkish, Turkey
- Jacob Suprenand (Political Science and Languages and Cultures of Asia), Urdu, India
- Richard Wells (History), Japanese, Japan
- Daniel Wieber (Anthropology and Languages and Cultures of Asia), Arabic, Morocco
They are among the approximately 550 U.S. undergraduate and graduate students selected for the CLS Program in 2014 to study Arabic, Azerbaijani, Bangla, Chinese, Hindi, Korean, Indonesian, Japanese, Persian, Punjabi, Russian, Turkish, or Urdu languages.
Students will spend seven to 10 weeks in intensive language institutes this summer in 13 countries where these languages are spoken. The CLS Program provides fully-funded, group-based intensive language instruction and structured cultural enrichment experiences designed to increase language fluency and cultural competency. CLS Program participants are expected to continue their language study beyond the scholarship and apply their critical language skills in their future professional careers.
The CLS Program is part of a U.S. government effort to dramatically expand the number of Americans studying and mastering critical foreign languages.
CLS Program participants are among the more than 40,000 academic and professional exchange program participants supported annually by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) to promote mutual understanding and respect between the people of the United States and the people of other countries. The CLS Program is administered by American Councils for International Education and The Ohio State University/Ohio University.