Three University of Richmond Students Awarded Critical Language Scholarships to Study Foreign Languages This Summer

UNIVERSITY OF RICHMOND — Three University of Richmond students have been awarded U.S. Department of State Critical Language Scholarships to study foreign languages this summer.

The prestigious CLS Program is part of a U.S. government initiative to expand the number of Americans studying and mastering critical foreign languages, which the U.S Department of State defines as those languages less commonly taught in U.S. schools but essential for America’s national security and economic prosperity.

CLS scholarship recipients spend eight to ten weeks abroad or virtually studying one of 15 critical languages, including Arabic, Azerbaijani, Bangla, Chinese, Hindi, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Persian, Portuguese, Punjabi, Russian, Swahili, Turkish, or Urdu.

To date, 25 University of Richmond students have received this scholarship.

The University of Richmond 2022 CLS scholarship recipients are:

Morgan Malstead, a senior from Tamil Nadu, India, who plans to use this scholarship to study Hindi this summer. Malstead is majoring in geography and the environment, has interned in Zakynthos, Greece, and studied abroad in Rome, Italy. 

Adelaide Tracey, a senior from Ithaca, New York, has completed a senior thesis on gender equality in the Kurdish regions of Syria and Iraq and plans to use this scholarship to study Urdu. She is a global studies major, with minors in music and French. She hopes to pursue a career in interpretation or in the foreign service. She has studied abroad in Prague and speaks French, some Urdu, and some Czech. 

Lillian Tzanev, a sophomore from New York City, is a double major in religious studies and global studies with a minor in Russian. Tzanev will travel to Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan for two months to study Russian through this scholarship. Tzanev is a Bulgarian-American who is fluent in Bulgarian and French in addition to speaking English and studying Russian.

More information is available at clsscholarship.org.

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