Texas State Graduate Student Receives CLS Award

Alejandra Sanchez, a master’s student in international studies, has been selected for the highly competitive Critical Language Scholarship (CLS) Program.

The CLS Program is a fully funded summer overseas language and cultural immersion program sponsored by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. The Program is part of a U.S. government effort to expand the number of Americans studying and mastering critical foreign languages. CLS scholars gain critical language and cultural skills that enable them to contribute to U.S. economic competitiveness and national security. Ms. Sanchez is one of the competitively selected American students, from a diverse pool of over 4,500 applicants at U.S. colleges and universities, who received a CLS award in 2022.

CLS provides scholarships to U.S. undergraduate and graduate students to spend eight to ten weeks abroad studying one of 15 critical languages: Arabic, Azerbaijani, Bangla, Chinese, Hindi, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Persian, Portuguese, Punjabi, Russian, Swahili, Turkish, or Urdu. The program includes intensive language instruction and structured cultural enrichment experiences designed to promote rapid language gains. CLS scholars are expected to continue their language study beyond the scholarship and apply their critical language skills in their future careers. While Alejandra applied to study Swahili in Tanzania, due to current global health and safety concerns, some CLS institutes for summer 2022, including Swahili, will be offered as virtual programs.

Through the CLS Program, the State Department seeks to build a cadre of Americans who speak critical languages and pursue high-level careers in government, business, arts and culture, science and engineering, health and medicine, education, and research. The Program plays an important role in preparing U.S. students for the 21st century’s globalized workforce, increasing American competitiveness, and contributing to national security. CLS scholars serve as citizen ambassadors, representing American values and the diversity of the United States, as well as building lasting relationships with people in their host countries. As Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, “People to people exchanges bring our world closer together and convey the best of America to the world, especially to its young people.”

CLS scholars represent a broad diversity of backgrounds and perspectives. CLS actively recruits in states and regions of the United States that have been historically under-represented in international education. Recipients of the 2022 CLS awards include students from 228 institutions of higher education across the United States, the District of Colombia, Guam, and Puerto Rico, including public and private universities, liberal arts colleges, minority-serving institutions, military academies, and community colleges.

Alejandra is the third graduate student to receive the prestigious CLS award since The Graduate College began offering external funding advising services in 2016. Institutionally, Alejandra is Texas State’s fifth CLS recipient. She applied to the CLS program last year and did not advance in the competition, but she decided to reapply this year — a testament not only to her perseverance but also the competitiveness of this award, which routinely receives more than 5,500 applications each year and has a selection rate of less than 10%.

Congratulations, Alejandra!

Students interested in applying next year for the 2023 CLS institutes should contact a Texas State CLS Campus Advisor.