Students in the College receive grants for foreign language studies abroad

More than 50 students in the College will receive financial assistance to pursue international study opportunities this summer––studies that will lead them to exotic locations and cultures all over the world.

“We strongly encourage students to study foreign language abroad, to experience a second language through international and cultural education,” said John Boyer, Dean of the College. “To help support study-abroad opportunities, this year we’ve doubled the number of FLAGs––with plans to double those grants again next spring.”

The 44 Foreign Language Acquisition Grant recipients will receive $2,000 to study a variety of foreign languages: Arabic; Bengali; Chinese; Czech; French; German; Hebrew; Hindi; Italian; Japanese; Norwegian; Polish and Spanish.

Students have a wide variety of reasons for learning a second, and sometimes third language. To help further his studies in medieval Islamic medicine, Imran Akbar will study Arabic in Cairo. Learning Arabic will allow him to research how the medical treatment of body and soul was supplanted by the modern, secular medical ethic. Nels Hanson will study in Oslo, so he can discuss economics, his concentration, in Norwegian. Rodney Lee Jones Jr. has fallen in love with everything French. “I express my awe and describe the beauty of the French culture in its own language, not in translation,” said Jones.

Other FLAG recipients are: Naurin Ahmad; Christine Allen; Yodit Beyene; Elliot Bougis; Elizabeth Boulter; Sean Campbell; Laura Culbertson; Daniel Davis; Maureen Duncan; John Eastburg; Jeff Gauthier; Kathryn Graber; Kristin Jantz; Kari Kammel; Ketevan Kulidzhanova; Jonathan Lange; Jory Lange Jr.; Myra LaRocque; Johanna Lee; Yat Leung; Anna Levine; Anne Newman; Thomas Osiecki; Sheetal Parikh; Mischa Park-Doob; Mehrunisa Qayyum; Pamela Raboy; Charles Ragsdale; Lars Reynolds; Armand Ryden; Katherine Sacksteder; Nehal Shah; John Shine; Beth Simon; Sunit Singh; Woramon Sinsuwan; Ellen Sunshine; Chloe Tribich; Susan Wagner; William Wan and Ruth Welte.

Six other students received International Traveling Research Fellowships, each worth $2,500: Matthew Dean; Mary Hackett; Lars Jarkko; Jori Lewis; Sheri Lullo and Kristie Reilly. This travel grant was created specifically for third-year students who need to travel abroad for research related to their B.A. papers. Knowing a second language is vital to the research each scholar plans to pursue.

Their interests range from Lewis’s study of postcolonial identity in Martinique to Dean’s archeological study of cave paintings in Spain.

The Dorot grant was designed specifically for students participating in summer academic programs in Israel, ranging from Hebrew study to archaeological digs. Dorot winners include Elizabeth Boulton, Beth Simon, Chloe Tribich, Benjamin Tievsky and Joshua Vigil-Daniel.

Jonah Gamblin received the Square D Travel Grant, which is administered by the University’s Chicago Group on Modern France and sponsored by the Square D Foundation in Palatine, Ill. Square D is a division of Groupe Schneider, a worldwide manufacturer of electrical distribution products and systems based in Paris. It is designed for any undergraduate who wishes to conduct research in France.

Gamblin will use the $5,000 scholarship to research the influence of Baron Haussman’s modern Paris on the painter Gustave Caillebotte. “I want to know how Caillebotte’s paintings were understood by his contemporaries,” said Gamblin. “The connection between Haussman and impressionist painters is well known, but there has been very little written about Caillebotte’s content as it relates to the figures in his paintings, who are in a private space looking out on a modern, public space.”

His research will include a study of Interieur, Femme a la Fenetre at the Musee d’Orsay in Paris along with collections of the artist’s work there and at the Musee des Beaux Arts in Rouen. In addition, Gamblin will study the Haussman archives at the Bibliotheque National and the Archives National in Paris.