CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Five undergraduates from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign are among the 550 students nationwide awarded U.S. Department of State Critical Language Scholarships to study critical languages this summer.
Part of a U.S. government effort to expand the number of Americans studying and mastering critical foreign languages, the CLS program provides full scholarships to U.S. undergraduate and graduate students to spend eight to 10 weeks overseas studying one of 14 critical languages: Arabic, Azerbaijani, Bangla, Chinese, Hindi, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Persian, Punjabi, Russian, Swahili, Turkish and Urdu. The program includes intensive language instruction and structured cultural enrichment experiences designed to promote rapid language gains. Students generally gain a year’s worth of language credit in just eight weeks.
Aja Beckham, of Chicago, is studying Bahasa Indonesian in Malang, Indonesia. Beckham, a high school graduate of Perspectives Leadership Academy and a December 2017 graduate of the University of Illinois with a bachelor’s degree in social work, is living with a host family for eight weeks while she receives language instruction at Universitas Negeri Malang. As a student at Illinois, Beckham studied abroad five times, in Vietnam, China, Jordan, Thailand and Laos. Beckham's long-term goal is to advance LGBT rights through writing literature and publishing internationally.
Lauren Kirby, of Tolono, Illinois, and a graduate of Unity High School, is studying Korean in Gwangju, South Korea. She is living with a host family while studying at Chonnam National University. Kirby is on track to graduate with a B.A. in communication in May 2019 with a minor in East Asian languages and cultures. Born in Alaska, Kirby is Koyukon Athabascan and Inupiaq from the Beaver Village Tribe. At Illinois, she is president of a Native American Indigenous Student Organization and serves as an English as a second language instructor. After graduation, Kirby hopes to teach English in South Korea and then work to facilitate relationships between her tribe and South Korea.
Melanie Rohla, of Lisle, Illinois, and a graduate of Lisle Senior High School, is studying Swahili and living with a host family in Arusha, Tanzania. Rohla, a dual major in global studies and in Earth, society and environmental sustainability, spent the spring 2018 semester studying in Kenya. A sophomore, Rohla is a James Scholar and member of the Campus Honors Program. Rohla previously spent two weeks on a service trip to Rwanda in 2014, visiting a refugee camp. She plans to pursue a career working with refugee populations on issues such as water quality and sanitation.
Matthew Schultz, a graduate of Prospect High School in Arlington Heights, Illinois, will be learning Turkish in Baku, Azerbaijan. As part of the program, he will live with a host family while taking classes at Azerbaijan University of Languages. Schultz, a sophomore French major who studied abroad in Paris in spring 2018 and taught English in Morocco in summer 2017, has pursued German, French and Spanish coursework at Illinois. Schultz plans a career assisting immigrant populations around the globe.
A fifth University of Illinois recipient is currently undertaking the program in Oman and is inaccessible.
CLS scholars serve as citizen ambassadors, representing the diversity of the United States abroad and building lasting relationships with people in their host countries. Recipients of the 2018 CLS awards include students from over 230 institutions of higher education across the U.S. CLS scholars are expected to continue their language study beyond the scholarship and to apply their critical language skills in their future careers. Since 2006, CLS has awarded scholarships to more than 5,700 American students to learn critical languages around the world.