Senior awarded Language Intensive Focus Track scholarship to continue Arabic studies in Jordan

Clara Wool, a senior in Commonwealth Honors College majoring in Environmental Design and Middle Eastern Studies, has been named an inaugural Language Intensive Focus Track (LIFT) scholar by the Council on International Educational Exchange, allowing her to extend her studies of Arabic in Amman, Jordan through the spring semester.

 

Last summer, Wool attended an intensive language institute in Jordan with a Critical Language Scholarship from the U.S. Department of State. She stayed on for the fall semester to attend the CIEE Language and Culture program, funded in part by a Boren Scholarship and a Dean’s Opportunity Scholarship from the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences.

 

Wool, who is from Ayer, chose to study in Amman because “I strongly believe that language acquisition promotes cultural understanding, which fosters cooperation between peoples and countries. By learning languages, we develop new ways to express ourselves, becoming more adaptive and innovative, and expand our mindsets.”

 

LIFT scholarships are awarded to the top college and university students based on undergraduate grade point average, the strength of a personal essay and a letter of recommendation from an advisor or faculty member. The 2013 LIFT scholarship recipients were chosen from a highly competitive pool of current CIEE students pursuing intensive language development in Arabic, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, Portuguese or Russian.