The U.S. Department of Education announced Wednesday that Boston University’s African Studies Center would receive two grants as part of an effort to strengthen global competitiveness in the disciplines of language and regional studies.
The Center plans to use the $586,000, a combination of two grants, one from the Language Resource Centers and one from the National Resource Centers, to develop curriculum, hire more professors, create exchange programs and fund fellowships, said Timothy Longman, director of the African Studies Center.
“This grant really distinguishes BU because it gives us the ability to teach so many more languages than most schools,” said Longman, a professor of political science. “On average, class sizes are much smaller, and students are much more successful at getting outside funding. Many of our students have gone on to receive Fulbright fellowships, and all of them were part of our strong language program.”
He said seven fellowships will go to graduate students, and three will go to undergraduate students.
The grants were among 269 grants, totaling more than $63 million, awarded to programs across the country. These grants have been awarded to BU since 1970, but the DoED renewed the grants this year with more funding than BU had previously received.
The DoED selected universities to be the recipients of the grant whose proposals showed a clear investment in language and area studies, said Jane Glickman, a spokeswoman for the DoED.
“Life in the 21st century means adapting to the most hyper-connected, interdependent world we’ve ever seen,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan in the Wednesday release from the DoED. “To help keep America safe, partner effectively with our allies and collaborate with other nations in solving global challenges, we need professionals with solid cultural knowledge and language skills that cover all parts of the globe.”
Duncan said the grants are part of a greater effort to increase global knowledge for students and educators.
BU’s renewed funding will go toward three main areas to enhance the African Studies Center and increase BU’s global competitiveness, Longman said. The first is funding students through fellowships to allow them to continue their research and education at BU. The second will be to equip the Center with resources to offer more classes in more subject areas.
“BU currently offers seven African languages, and with this grant will now offer one more language,” Longman said. “Because this is a federal grant, professors don’t have to meet the minimum class sizes, which means classes tend to be smaller. We can offer more individualized attention to students who want it, and it lets them go farther in their studies.”
The third area the grant money will go to is to create more exchange and study abroad partnerships in the near future for students interested in traveling to Africa. Longman said the Center is looking into programs in Zanzibar, Ghana and South Africa.
BU has been one of the top universities for African Studies for over 60 years because of its impressive offering for language, culture and society studies, Longman said.
Many BU students said they were excited about the prospect of having access to the benefits that this grant will bring to BU.
Kristen Lee, a sophomore in Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, said funding language programs is an important part of higher education.
“It’s really great that BU was given this grant for language studies because it’s important to teach students how to communicate with different cultures, no matter where they go to school,” she said.
Monica Chung, a sophomore in the College of Engineering, said increasing multi-cultural studies at BU is important because the student body is so diverse.
“There are students from all over the world, and that diversity adds to our community, which is why it’s so important to study languages,” she said. “Having the money to give students that opportunity is so important.”
Sun Ho Jung, a College of Arts and Sciences sophomore, said studying abroad is a significant part of the college experience, and funding for unique programs elevates BU’s status as a competitive institution.
“We have so many study abroad programs at BU. It’s amazing how many places students can go,” she said. “Hopefully this grant will lead even more students to go abroad and get a global education. Going abroad, especially to a place like Africa, which is so different from the United States, is important for expanding your mind. It really gives you a window into what other cultures are like.”
More than anything, Longman said this grant stresses the fundamental importance and impact of studying a foreign language.
“We really find that studying a foreign language is an important window into cultures. If you really want to understand a foreign country and its people and why its government works the way it does, language is really a key to that,” he said. “The world is becoming a smaller place. Lots of conversations are taking place that don’t happen in English. If we don’t speak those languages, we’re excluded from those conversations.”
