The East Asian Studies Center, Center for Latin American Studies and Center for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies have awarded more than $800,000 in student support this year in the form of 53 Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowship grants to Ohio State students spanning 12 graduate programs and 25 undergraduate majors. For Summer 2023, more than $148,000 in awards supported four graduate and 14 undergraduate students in their pursuit of intensive language study. For Academic Year 2023-2024, more than $653,000 in awards will support 18 graduate and 17 undergraduate students pursuing language and area studies across many disciplines. Funding for FLAS Fellowships comes from the U.S. Department of Education under Title VI of the Higher Education Act and is subsidized by generous matching funding from The Ohio State University Graduate School. 

This year’s FLAS fellowships support the development of area studies knowledge and language fluency in 11 languages, with 75 percent of fellows pursuing language study at the advanced level. 

• The East Asian Studies Center awarded funding to three graduate and two undergraduate students in Summer 2023 and nine graduate and seven undergraduate students in Academic Year 2023-2024 to support advanced studies of Chinese, Japanese and Korean.
• The Center for Latin American Studies awarded funding to one graduate and seven undergraduate students in Summer 2023 and two graduate and six undergraduate students in Academic Year 2023-2024 to support the study of Haitian Creole, Portuguese and Quechua. 
• The Center for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies awarded funding to five undergraduate students in Summer 2023 and six graduate and four undergraduate students in Academic Year 2023-2024 to support the study of Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian, Dari, Polish, Russian and Turkish. 

Summer FLAS Fellows complete the equivalent of a full year of language study in an intensive program (usually 6-10 weeks long). The fellowship covers up to $5,000 of the language program’s tuition, provides a $2,500 stipend, and in some instances, up to $1,000 towards travel. This summer, while the war in Ukraine made study at several popular language programs impossible, the Center for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies supported fellows in identifying programs in other Eurasian countries to continue their study of Russian.

Academic year FLAS Fellowships are awarded to undergraduate, graduate, or professional students who are enrolled in a course of study at Ohio State that requires both language and area studies expertise. Students are required to take one language and one area studies course in both autumn and spring semesters, completing one academic year language sequence. The fellowship provides a stipend of $20,000 and tuition support up to $18,000 for graduate and professional students, though Graduate School contributions cover all tuition charges for most fellows. For undergraduate students, it provides a stipend of $5,000 and tuition and fees up to $10,000. 

View the complete list of Summer 2023 and Academic Year 2023-2024 FLAS Fellowship Grant recipients.