UM STUDENTS EARN CRITICAL LANGUAGE SCHOLARSHIP

Za zdorov’e! (Cheers!) to UM students Jack Baranski and Scout McMahon, who each received a competitive Critical Language Scholarship from the U.S. Department of State. The prestigious scholarship is for American university students to learn languages essential to the nation’s engagement with the world. Only 500 CLS scholarships are awarded from a pool more than 5,000 annually.

Both Brananksi and McMahon are Russian majors and will spend the summer in Tbilisi, Georgia, deeply immersed in Georgian language and culture.

Baranski, from St. Louis, is a Russian major who double-majors in Environmental Sciences because he’s found a connection between language and working to solve some of the world’s biggest problems, like climate change. McMahon, from Kalispell, triple majors in Russian, linguistics and linguistic anthropology (in addition to working toward a master’s degree in linguistics), and she’s interested in the discovery and protection of endangered languages, especially in the Caucuses.

Both say studying Russian at UM has opened their minds and hearts to a broader, complex world with an education made for remaking it.

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Originally published on @umontana 's Instagram page

Contact: Kylla Benes, UM director of external scholarships and fellowships, 406-243-5241, kylla.benes@umontana.edu