Research

Center for Global Studies gets $1.1 million grant from Department of Education

The grant will support graduate and undergraduate study of languages and area studies

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The Center for Global Studies (CGS) at Penn State recently received a new federal grant that will help meritorious students receive training in languages and related area studies. Penn State will receive approximately $1.1 million in Title VI Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) funds over four years from the U.S. Department of Education. This award marks the second time Penn State has received the FLAS grant.

Based in the College of the Liberal Arts, the Center for Global Studies is directed by Sophia McClennen, professor of international affairs and comparative literature, who founded the center in 2010 after receiving Penn State’s first Title VI National Resource Center grant. Sarah Lyall-Combs is the center's associate director. The CGS is also supported by an executive, advisory and outreach board, as well as by liaisons with partners across Penn State. The FLAS coordinators are Caroline Eckhardt, professor of comparative literature and English and director of the School of Global Languages, Literatures, and Cultures; and Elena Galinova, academic director of the Language Institute at Penn State.

The CGS will award FLAS funds to undergraduate and graduate students in the form of fellowships to achieve competency in foreign languages and conduct research in related international and area studies. FLAS-eligible languages at Penn State include Arabic, Chinese, Hindi, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese and Russian. Students in all fields of study, both undergraduate and graduate, are encouraged to apply.

FLAS information sessions will be held 1-2:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 6, and 2-3:30 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 9, both in room 463 Burrowes Building. This cycle includes a special opportunity to apply for one-semester fellowships for spring 2019, as well as fellowships for Summer 2019 and academic year 2019-2020. Deadlines for full consideration are Nov. 12, 2018 (for spring 2019 fellowships), and Feb. 1, 2019 (for summer or 2019-2020 academic-year fellowships); later applications may be considered if funds remain. For eligibility and other details, contact Elena Galinova at galinova@psu.edu.

Each academic-year fellowship includes an institutional payment of up to $18,000 (graduate student) or $10,000 (undergraduate student), and an estimated subsistence allowance of $15,000 (graduate student) and $5,000 (undergraduate student). For summer 2019, the estimated institutional payment is $5,000 and the subsistence allowance is $2,500 (both graduate and undergraduate). The special spring 2019 fellowships provide half the academic-year amounts.

For more information on FLAS and the application process, visit http://bit.ly/CGSflas. For up-to-date information on the Center for Global Studies or to subscribe to its listserv, visit http://cgs.la.psu.edu or send an email to cgsinfo@psu.edu.

Last Updated November 1, 2018

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