NFLC Announces Study of NSEP Fellowship Program

Thursday, August 24, 2000

The National Foreign Language Center has begun an investigation into the outcomes of overseas language study. Funded by the National Security Education Program (NSEP), the study will address the questions of what levels of proficiency the students attain in their languages of study and which factors predict the attainment of advanced language proficiency. The study follows in the wake of other NFLC studies dealing with study abroad and is central to the NFLC mission of supporting the nation's language capacity, especially in the less commonly taught languages.

The NSEP, established in 1991 by the National Security Education Act, has awarded fellowships to nearly two thousand students since May 1994. NSEP enables undergraduate and graduate students in disciplines ranging from anthropology to medicine to study in more than 100 countries. As part of their fellowships, students study a language or languages of the region where they are conducting their studies. NSEP especially encourages the study of languages that are less commonly taught and studied in the US; NSEP fellows have studied more than 70 less commonly taught languages, including Albanian, Croatian, Indonesian, Tagalog, and Zulu.

Former NSEP fellows, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education (April 7, 2000), now hold employment in agencies of the federal government and non-governmental organizations dealing with national security and international cooperation issues. Fellows are found in the US Department of State, the Congressional Research Service, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Agency for International Development, and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

More information: Victor Frank, vfrank@nflc.org