In 2022, CGS was awarded two new federal grants – Title VI National Resource Center and Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) grants – totaling $2.1 million over four years from the U.S. Department of Education. This award marks the third time Penn State has received the Title VI NRC award and the third time it has been awarded FLAS, which highlights national recognition of the center’s active engagement with research, education, and outreach in global studies. CGS is one of only six centers in the nation to receive both the NRC and FLAS awards in the international competition for Title VI awards.

Our goal in the next four years is to work collaboratively with institutions across Penn State to support research, teaching, and programming that will advance the University’s expertise in global studies and international perspectives. A new initiative this cycle includes a partnership with Penn State Abington to support faculty travel for research. 

CGS will also foster global citizenship and cross-cultural awareness through support of Arabic, Chinese, Hindi, Korean, Russian, and Swahili language instruction at the University Park campus. The NRC award will also help fund Penn State’s first Farsi class and will support a symposium on “Afghanistan in Global Perspective.” 

CGS will award FLAS funding, which directly supports students, in the form of fellowships to enable undergraduate and graduate students to achieve competency in selected world languages and to study and conduct research in the U.S. or abroad on related international and area studies. FLAS-eligible languages currently offered by Penn State include Arabic, Chinese, Hindi, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, and Russian; other languages may be added.