Four undergraduates in the Honors Program have been awarded National Security Education Program David L. Boren Undergraduate Scholarships for language study abroad during the 2009-2010 academic year.
Three of the UGA recipients have accepted the award. They are Laura Eaton and Daniel Jackson, both pursuing bachelor’s degrees in international affairs and Arabic language and literature; and Dan Healy, who is studying both international affairs and Chinese language and literature.
“This is the first time that four UGA students have received Boren awards in a single year,” said David S. Williams, director of UGA’s Honors Program and NSEP’s faculty representative at UGA. “They all began their language instruction at UGA and supplemented that with language study abroad. The awards will allow the three students who accepted them further extension of their studies by funding lengthy and immersive experiences.”
The scholarships, usually for one semester or a full academic year, aim to give recipients the tools and skills to work in fields deemed important to U.S. national security through the study of less commonly taught foreign languages and immersion in those cultures. In exchange for the travel-study opportunity, the recipients agree to work for one year for the U.S. government.
Eaton, who is also pursuing a minor in French at UGA, is currently studying Arabic at Al-Akhawayn University in Ifrane, Morocco, for one year-her second time studying in the country. She is taking classes in Arabic culture, politics, language and media, along with studies in French and international affairs.
Jackson is currently taking courses on the Arabic language at Qasid Institute in Amman, Jordan, for one year, hoping to complete the entire language curriculum (levels 3, 4 and 5) by spring. He already had studied Arabic in Morocco last summer at the Arabic Language Institute in Fes.
Healy is spending a year at Nanjing University in Nanjing, China, where he is pursuing courses in the language, culture and literature of Mandarin Chinese. He already has studied in China in summer 2007, attending Nanjing Normal University for six weeks.
