UIC student goes to Morocco on State Department scholarship
University of Illinois at Chicago sophomore Luana Davila of Joliet has been awarded a U.S. Department of State Critical Language Scholarship to study Arabic in Morocco this summer.
Davila, who is a classics major and Arabic minor in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and a member of the UIC Honors College, is one of approximately 550 competitively selected American students from over 230 U.S. colleges and universities who received the award this year.
The Critical Language Scholarship, which is part of a U.S. government effort to expand the number of Americans studying and mastering critical foreign languages, features a fully funded intensive language program that includes cultural enrichment experiences.
Beginning in June, she will study Arabic in Meknes, Morocco, for eight weeks through a program hosted by the Arab American Language Institute.
The program, which is the equivalent of one academic year of university-level study, features 16 hours per week spent learning Modern Standard Arabic, while four hours each week are spent on the local Maghrebi Arabic dialect, known as Darija.
Davila comes from a rich cultural background. Her father’s side of the family is Peruvian, and her mother is of Middle Eastern descent. She credits her mother with inspiring her interest in the Arabic language.
“I grew up listening to the music, eating the food and getting yelled at in Arabic — with love of course,” she said. “She always urged me to learn starting at a young age knowing that learning multiple languages would come in handy as I got older.”
Davila believes that immersion in Arabic language studies has allowed her to better connect with her family heritage and prepare for a career in cultural studies. She hopes to eventually become a curator at the Field Museum.
“The Field Museum has been one of my favorite places ever since I was a kid,” said Davila, a 2017 graduate of Joliet West High School. “I hope this experience will allow me to work more closely with the cultures that I am so fascinated with.”
She is the 23rd UIC student since 2007 to receive a U.S. Department of State Critical Language Scholarship.
UIC’s Office of External Fellowships provides advising and assistance to current undergraduate and professional school students in finding and applying for a range of nationally and internationally competitive fellowships, scholarships and grants.
Ray Hanania is an award winning political and humor columnist who analyzes American and Middle East politics, and life in general. He is an author of several books.
Hanania covered Chicago Politics and Chicago City Hall from 1976 through 1992 at the Daily Southtown and the Chicago Sun-Times. He began writing in 1975 publishing The Middle Eastern Voice newspaper in Chicago (1975-1977). He later published “The National Arab American Times” newspaper (2004-2007).
Hanania writes weekly columns on Middle East and American Arab issues as Special US Correspondent for the Arab News ArabNews.com, at TheArabDailyNews.com, and at SuburbanChicagoland.com. He has published weekly columns in the Jerusalem Post newspaper, YNetNews.com, Newsday, the Orlando Sentinel, Houston Chronical, and Arlington Heights Daily Herald.
Hanania is the recipient of four (4) Chicago Headline Club “Peter Lisagor Awards” for Column writing. In November 2006, he was named “Best Ethnic American Columnist” by the New American Media. In 2009, Hanania received the prestigious Sigma Delta Chi Award for Writing from the Society of Professional Journalists. He is the recipient of the MT Mehdi Courage in Journalism Award. He was honored for his writing skills with two (2) Chicago Stick-o-Type awards from the Chicago Newspaper Guild. In 1990, Hanania was nominated by the Chicago Sun-Times editors for a Pulitzer Prize for his four-part series on the Palestinian Intifada.
His writings have also been honored by two national Awards from ADC for his writing, and from the National Arab American Journalists Association.
Hanania is the US Special Correspondent for the Arab News Newspaper, covering Middle East and Arab American issues. He writes for the Southwest News newspaper group writing on mainstream American issues.
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