July 17, 2008

Purdue student earns scholarship for study in Jordan

Dawes of Columbus, Ind., was awarded a Critical Language Scholarship, which is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and administered by the Council of American Overseas Research. She will be learning intermediate level Arabic in Amman, Jordan, through Aug. 17 at the Qasid Institute for Classical and Modern Standard Arabic.

"I applied to the program because I hope to increase my Arabic proficiency in order to apply to a doctoral program in Middle Eastern history," Dawes said. "In addition to becoming a professor of Middle Eastern history, I also hope to work in the Middle East, either for the Foreign Service or with aid organizations."

Dawes is majoring in history with a minor in French and concentrations in Arabic and Chinese.

The program is part of the National Security Language Initiative, a U.S. government effort to expand the number of Americans studying and mastering much-needed foreign languages, said Cristy Cornell, Purdue's national and international scholarship coordinator.

The program is open to undergraduate, master's and doctoral students and recent graduates. Applicants must be U.S. citizens and have completed at least one year of general college coursework by the program start date. Students in all disciplines are encouraged to apply to the program, but each foreign institute may have language pre-requisites in place, Cornell said.

Writer: Christy Jones, (765) 494-1089, christyjones@purdue.edu

Sources: Cristy Cornell, Purdue's national and international scholarship coordinator, (765) 494-1727, ccornell@purdue.edu

Emily Dawes, eldawes@purdue.edu

Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; purduenews@purdue.edu

To the News Service home page