State department funds language scholarships for 10 MPH students

Manlius Pebble Hill School has announced the names of 10 students who will receive full merit scholarships funded by the U.S. Department of State to participate in language immersion studies this summer in China.

Eight students will participate in the National Security Language Initiative for Youth program through a $60,000 grant to Manlius Pebble Hill School. They are current juniors Adam Feiszli, of Cortland; Emily Bierut, of LaFayette; Steven Dixon, of Baldwinsville; and David Allyn and Elaine Mertens Crough, both of Skaneateles; sophomores Liam O’Brien, of DeWitt; and Alexander Olson of Cicero; and freshman Nika Jonas, of Syracuse.

MPH Chinese language teacher Wei Gao will accompany the eight students as they travel to Beijing, Qinghuangdao, and nearby cities for six weeks of Mandarin study. They are expected to leave June 26 and return Aug. 7.

Two other MPH students, junior Jordan Meier, of Cazenovia, and senior Alex Urist, of Tully, applied individually last October for a highly competitive NSLI-Y National Scholarship.Both have been notified that they will receive full scholarships for the intensive six-week language study program. Meier will spend the majority of her time in Zhengzhou, the capital city of Henan Province in China’s central region. Urist will study chiefly in Shanghai, China’s most populous city. Both MPH students participated last summer in language studies in China.

This is the second consecutive year in which MPH has applied for and received a $60,000 federal grant to fund student study in China. To prepare American citizens to be leaders in a global world, NSLI-Y provides merit scholarships for programs in less commonly studied languages – Arabic, Chinese (Mandarin), Hindi, Korean, Persian, Russian and Turkish.