Goshen College student selected for U.S. Department of State Critical Language Scholarship (CLS) Program

Billy Easton II, an undergraduate student from Goshen College, is participating in the U.S. Department of State’s Critical Language Scholarship (CLS) Program to study Swahili during the summer of 2024. Easton is one of approximately 500 American students at U.S. colleges and universities who were selected from over 5,000 applicants to study overseas or virtually in the summer of 2024.

The CLS Program is part of a U.S. Government effort to increase the number of Americans studying critical foreign languages. CLS scholars gain language and cultural skills that enable them to contribute to U.S. economic competitiveness and national security. The program provides opportunities to U.S. undergraduate and graduate students to spend eight to ten weeks studying one of over a dozen critical languages: Arabic, Azerbaijani, Chinese, Hindi, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, Swahili, Turkish or Urdu. The program includes intensive language instruction and cultural enrichment experiences to promote rapid language gains.

Easton describes the eight-week accelerated language program as “very challenging and also rewarding.” Following the Critical Language Scholarship Program, he plans to remain in Tanzania a few more months to pursue business opportunities related to his interests in music.

The CLS Program partners with universities and nonprofits around the globe to provide cohorts of U.S. students an opportunity to study the language and culture in a country/location where the target language is commonly spoken. The CLS Program, through its CLS Spark Initiative, also provides beginner level virtual instruction for Arabic, Chinese and Russian for competitively selected U.S. undergraduate students. CLS scholars are expected to continue their language study beyond the program and apply their critical language skills in their future careers.

Recipients of the 2024 CLS awards come from all 50 U.S. states, as well as the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, and include students from over 200 institutions of higher education, including public and private universities, community colleges, liberal arts colleges, military academies and minority-serving institutions.