Two Students and a Recent Graduate Receive U.S. State Department Scholarships

St. Paul, Minn. – Martha Rigby ’13 from Etna, N.H., Kaitlin Roh ’12 from Columbus, Neb., and Rachel Wisthuff  ’11 from La Grange, Ill. have all been awarded U.S. State Department Critical Language Scholarships (CLS) to study critical languages this summer.

These students are among the approximately 575 U.S. undergraduate and graduate students who received a scholarship from the State Department’s CLS Program this year to study Arabic, Azerbaijani, Bangla/Bengali, Chinese, Hindi, Korean, Indonesian, Japanese, Persian, Punjabi, Russian, Turkish, or Urdu languages.  U.S. students will spend seven to ten weeks in intensive language institutes this summer in 14 countries where these languages are spoken.  The CLS Program provides fully funded, group-based intensive language instruction and structured cultural enrichment experiences.  CLS Program participants are expected to continue their language study beyond the scholarship and apply their critical language skills in their future professional careers. 

Rigby will be going to Russia to study Russian, Roh, will be in Muscat, Oman to study Arabic, from June 1 through August 1, and Wisthuff, will be in Beijing, China to study Chinese, from June 18 through August 18. Wisthuff graduated from Macalester May 14, 2011.

The 2011 CLS Program received over 5,200 applications.  Representing all 50 states, students from a range of academic disciplines and U.S. colleges and universities were selected for scholarships in 2011 through a merit-based selection process.  

The U.S. Department of State launched the Critical Language Scholarships for Intensive Summer Institutes in 2006 to increase opportunities for American students to study critical-need languages overseas.  The program is part of a wider U.S. government effort to expand the number of Americans studying and mastering critical languages. 

CLS Program participants are among the more than 40,000 academic and professional exchange program participants supported annually by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) to promote mutual understanding and respect between the people of the United States and the people of other countries.

Macalester College, founded in 1874, is a national liberal arts college with a full-time enrollment of 1,958 students. Macalester is nationally recognized for its long-standing commitment to academic excellence, internationalism, multiculturalism and civic engagement.  Learn more at macalester.edu