Foreign Language & Area Studies Fellowship

Interested in FLAS@UNC?

PLEASE REVIEW THE LIST OF ELIGIBLE LANGUAGES BEFORE APPLYING

Five different Area Study Centers at UNC administer FLAS fellowships supporting many less commonly taught languages. It is important that applicants review the appropriate FAQs provided by the Area Studies Center that supports the applicant’s language of application.
If you have questions about the fellowships offered by the Center for Global Initiatives, please review the Center’s FAQ. If your question is not answered, please contact Iyman Gaspard at iyman.gaspard@unc.edu.

Purpose

FLAS fellowships fund the study of less commonly taught languages and area studies coursework. This program provides academic year and summer fellowships to assist graduate students and advanced undergraduates in foreign language and area studies. The goals of the fellowship program include: (1) to assist in the development of knowledge, resources and trained personnel for modern foreign language and area/international studies; (2) to stimulate the attainment of foreign language acquisition and fluency; and (3) to develop a pool of international experts to meet national needs. There are two types of FLAS grants offered by the Center:

1. Summer intensive language study. Grants provide $2,500 in stipend and full tuition (up to $5,000) for approved intensive summer language courses in the U.S. or abroad.
2. An academic year course of study that includes both language and area studies courses. Academic year grants for GRADUATE students provide about $15,000 in stipend plus full tuition and fees. Academic year grants for UNDERGRADUATE students provide $5000 in stipend plus up to $10,000 in tuition and fees.

Eligibility

• Status as a U.S. citizen, national or permanent resident.
• At the graduate level, students must be enrolled or accepted for enrollment in a program of graduate or professional study. Graduate students must be at the intermediate or advanced level of study. If applying as a beginner, you must have advanced-level knowledge of another regionally-related language (for example, if applying as a beginner in Polish, you must have advanced knowledge of Russian, or any other Slavic language).
• At the undergraduate level, only students in the intermediate or advanced study of a less commonly taught language are eligible.

Priorities

• Applications for Arabic, Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian, Hindi-Urdu, Polish and Russian will be prioritized for funding.
• Applicants may submit other less commonly taught languages not supported by other UNC Area Study Centers for funding consideration, especially for summer FLAS awards.
• We assign lowest priority to the selection of fellows who already possess language fluency equivalent to educated native speakers.

Application Instructions

All applicants for should follow the common application instructions here, then review this FAQ which applies specifically to applicants applying for languages supported by the Center for Global Initiatives: Arabic, Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian, Hindi-Urdu, Polish and Russian. All other applicants should review the center-specific application instructions.

Applications are submitted through the online FLAS@UNC application for all languages and to all centers.

Required materials include:

1. Demographic and contact information
2. Statement of purpose
   Your statement should describe how the proposed language study fits in with your overall course of study, career goals and/or academic research interests. Academic year applicants should limit their essays to 1,000 words. Summer applicants should limit their essays to 500 words. Applicants to both academic year and summer should combine their essay and limit it to 1,500 words.
3. Recommendation forms
   Two recommendation forms are required. Letters of recommendation are not accepted in lieu of the form.
4. CV/Resume.
5. Language evaluation form