3 TXST students receive awards from Critical Language Scholarship Program for summer 2024 language study

STUDENT EXPERIENCE

Lane Fortenberry | June 12, 2024

The Critical Language Scholarship (CLS) Program, a fully funded overseas language and cultural immersion summer program for American undergraduate and graduate students, has selected three Texas State University students as awardees for its 2024 summer language programs.

CLS, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, seeks to build a cadre of Americans who speak one of 13 languages critical to our national security, economic prosperity, and engagement with the world.

CLS Spark is a new virtual initiative of the CLS Program that is open only to undergraduate students and supports the study of Arabic, Chinese, or Russian during summer programs.

The CLS Program routinely receives about 5,000 applications annually and has a selection rate of less than 10% for the Critical Language Scholarship. Two of this year's awardees were initially selected as alternates and were promoted to finalists (recipients).

The 2024 awardees for these highly competitive programs are listed below:

Headshot of Ethan Guinn.

Ethan Guinn

Honors student, double major in religious studies and history; minor in Japanese

CLS Spark — Russian

Guinn will spend about eight weeks this summer learning Russian through online classes and activities facilitated by native speakers at a CLS partner institution abroad.

CLS Campus Advisor: Cathlin Noonan, IDEA Center, Honors College

Headshot of Anastasia Gumatay.

Anastasia Gumatay

master’s student, social work

CLS — Hindi

A former Peace Corps volunteer in the Philippines and Paul D. Coverdell Fellowship recipient, Gumatay will study Hindi in Jaipur, India, through the American Institute of Indian Studies from June 12-Aug. 10.

CLS Campus Advisor: Andrea Hilkovitz, Ph.D., The Graduate College

Headshot of Dustin Sanchez.

Dustin Sanchez

doctoral student, geography

CLS — Turkish

A veteran and Fulbright U.S. Student Program grantee to Kosovo in 2022-2023, Sanchez will study Turkish in Ankara, Turkey, through the Ankara University TÖMER Institute from June 20-Aug. 17.

CLS Campus Advisor: Brian Smith, DMA, The Graduate College

Guinn is TXST's first-ever recipient of the CLS Spark award, which is a relatively new program that was piloted in 2022-2023. This also marks the first year that two TXST graduate students have been awarded in the same year (Gumatay and Sanchez are the fifth and sixth graduate students to receive the CLS). Finally, Guinn is TXST’s first recipient for Russian, and Gumatay is the first recipient for Hindi.

This year's class ties last year's for the largest number of recipients from TXST. Applicants were supported by an expanded fellowship advising team that now includes Noonan, who is housed in the IDEA Center and Honors College and who advises undergraduate applicants for this award in coordination with The Graduate College's external funding coordinators.

Interested applicants should contact the appropriate CLS Campus Advisor at TXST for more information about these programs and the campus processes for supporting undergraduate and graduate students’ applications.

For more information, contact University Communications:

Jayme Blaschke, 512-245-2555

Sandy Pantlik, 512-245-2922