The National Resource Centers program and the Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowships (FLAS) program, both administered by the U.S. Department of Education, have awarded the Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies nearly $5.6 million in funding to be used over the course of the next four years. In Academic Year 2014-15, the first year of the grants, they provide $1.4 million for international affairs teaching and programming, as well as for student fellowships for the academic year, and summer study of languages and related courses.
The Council on African Studies and the Council on Middle East Studies each won a National Resource Centers grant. The grants will support a variety of programs, initiatives, visitors from the regions, and outreach. Both have been recipients of NRC grants over the course of the past two decades.
Both councils, as well as the Council on European Studies, also received FLAS Fellowships funding for studying language and related world regional courses.
“We are pleased to receive funding for our councils in African Studies and Middle East Studies, and for language study in these regions of the world as well as Europe,” said Ian Shapiro, Henry R. Luce Director of the MacMillan Center, and Sterling Professor of Political Science. “With so much focus on Africa and the Middle East in the world today, it is important to strengthen international and world region teaching programs and the teaching of languages, and this funding will enable us to do that here at Yale. The European grant will also enable us to support Russian and related East European language study, as well as others among the 14 European languages currently taught for credit at Yale.”
The FLAS Fellowships Program provides world language instruction in combination with area studies, international studies, or the international aspects of professional studies. FLAS grants include academic year and summer fellowships that are awarded to meritorious undergraduate and graduate students undergoing training in modern foreign languages and related areas or international studies.