Lebanon Valley College

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Lebanon Valley College Student Receives U.S. Department of State Critical Language Scholarship

Elianna Fitzpatrick '24, a triple major in Global Studies, Spanish, and International Business, studying Mandarin Chinese

Annville, PA (06/29/2023) — FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 100663 Contact: ECA Press Date: 06/23/2023 Email: eca-press@state.gov

Lebanon Valley College Student Selected for U.S. Department of State Critical Language Scholarship Program

1 student from Lebanon Valley College will participate in the U.S. Department of State's Critical Language Scholarship (CLS) Program to study critical languages during the summer of 2023. They are among approximately 500 competitively selected American students at U.S. colleges and universities who received a CLS award in 2023.

Elianna Fitzpatrick Chinese

The CLS Program is part of a U.S. government effort to increase the number of Americans studying critical foreign languages. CLS scholars gain language and cultural skills that enable them to contribute to U.S. economic competitiveness and national security. The CLS Program provides opportunities to U.S. undergraduate and graduate students to spend eight to ten weeks studying one of 14 critical languages: Arabic, Azerbaijani, Bangla, Chinese, Hindi, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, Swahili, Turkish, or Urdu. The program includes intensive language instruction and cultural enrichment experiences to promote rapid language gains.

The CLS Program partners with universities and nonprofits around the globe to provide cohorts of U.S. students an opportunity to study the language and culture in a country/location where the target language is commonly spoken. The CLS Program, through its CLS Spark initiative, also provides beginner-level virtual instruction for Arabic, Chinese, and Russian for competitively selected U.S. undergraduate students whose home campuses do not offer these languages. CLS scholars are expected to continue their language study beyond the scholarship and apply their critical language skills in their future careers.

CLS scholars represent a broad diversity of backgrounds and perspectives. Recipients of the 2023 CLS awards come from all 50 U.S. states, as well as the District of Columbia, Guam, and Puerto Rico and include students from over 200 institutions of higher education, including public and private universities, community colleges, liberal arts colleges, military academies, and minority-serving institutions.

For further information about the CLS Program or other exchange programs offered by the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, please contact ECA-Press@state.gov and visit our websites at http://www.clscholarship.org/ and https://studyabroad.state.gov/.

About Lebanon Valley College

Lebanon Valley College, founded in 1866, offers bachelor's degrees in more than 50 majors; master's degrees in accounting (MBA 3+1), applied kinesiology, athletic training, business administration, clinical exercise physiology, clinical mental health counseling, education, intelligence and security studies, music education, school counseling, science in STEM education, speech-language pathology, and sport performance; a doctoral degree in physical therapy; ACT 48 continuing education for educator credits; and certificates in comprehensive curriculum & assessment for PreK-12, healthcare management, integrative STEM education, leadership & ethics, marketing, modern band, online teaching & learning, project management, social, emotional, & behavioral wellness, sport enhancement, supply chain management & logistics, and trauma-informed counseling. Located eight miles from Hershey, Pennsylvania, this college of 1,600 undergraduate and 400+ graduate students produces alumni who attend prestigious graduate and professional schools and are employed by top companies and school districts.

Thirty-one percent of our students are first generation (40% of first-year class), 21% of fall 2022 first-year students were Pell-eligible, and 100% of the fall 2021 incoming class received grant or scholarship aid from LVC. More than 35% of our students participate on our 27 NCAA Division III athletic teams or eSports teams, and, our students volunteer more than 20,000 hours of community service during the academic year.

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