Shelby Deaton of Kalispell Wins National Critical Language Scholarship

BURLINGTON, VT (06/08/2012)(readMedia)-- The opportunity to learn a new language in a globalizing world is valuable, but the opportunity to learn a new language in a fully funded immersion program abroad is unique and unforgettable. That is what awaits Shelby Deaton, a University of Vermont sophomore from Kalispell, Mont. who has been awarded the U.S. State Department's Critical Language Scholarship.

The nationally competitive Critical Language Scholarship Program offers intensive summer language institutes overseas in 13 critical-need languages. Language offerings include Chinese, Russian, Arabic, Hindu, Urdu, Turkish and Persian. Deaton, a UVM Honors College student, will be studying Arabic at the advanced beginning level. A double political science and history major, Deaton is very interested in the experience of women in the Middle East. She will also spend this summer studying in Tunis, Tunisia. After completing the critical language program in August, she will remain in the Middle East to study abroad in Jordan for the fall 2012 semester.

Deaton and three other UVM students are four of 575 students to receive the award (the competition received 5,200 applications from undergraduate and graduate students across the country). Critical Language Scholarship institutes provide fully funded group-based intensive language instruction and structured cultural enrichment experiences for seven to 10 weeks for U.S. students. The CLS Program is part of a U.S. government effort to expand the number of Americans studying and mastering critical-need foreign languages. Participants are expected to continue their language study beyond the scholarship period, and later apply their critical language skills in their future professional careers.

Since 2005, when the university put a centralized fellowship outreach and support program in place, 96 UVM students have won or been finalists in the country's most prestigious and competitive competitions, including the Fulbright, Rhodes, Goldwater, Marshall, Udall, Truman, Madison, Gilman, and Boren Overseas scholarships.

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