CR Student Jason Klocek Awarded Critical Language Scholarship to Study in Russia

Conflict Resolution M.A. candidate Jason Klocek will study Russian this summer on a U.S. Department of State Critical Language Scholarship.

Jason currently serves as a Research Assistant for Professor Clyde Wilcox assisting with projects focused on the role of religion in politics and the politics of social issues. From September 2003 to October 2005, Jason served with the U.S. Peace Corps in south-eastern Turkmenistan.

Sponsored by the United States Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and administered by the Council of American Overseas Research Centers, the Critical Language Scholarships Program was launched in 2006. In its inaugural year, the Program offered intensive overseas study in the critical need foreign languages of Arabic, Bangla/Bengali, Hindi, Punjabi, Turkish and Urdu. In 2007, Chinese, Korean, Persian, and Russian institutes were added along with increased student capacity in the inaugural language institutes.

The Program is part of the National Security Language Initiative (NSLI), a U.S. government interagency effort to expand dramatically the number of Americans studying and mastering critical need foreign languages. Scholarship recipients - U.S. citizen undergraduate, Master's and Ph.D. students and recent graduates - receive funding to participate in beginning, intermediate and advanced level summer language programs at American Overseas Research Centers and affiliated partners. Recipients are expected to continue their language study beyond the scholarship period and later apply their critical language skills in their professional careers.