Arts and Sciences Students Win Boren, CLS Scholarships to Study Languages

Five Penn Arts and Sciences students have received scholarships that will send them abroad to study foreign languages in the next year. 

Benjamin Filreis, C’14, has been awarded a National Security Education Program (NSEP) Boren Scholarship for the 2014-15 academic year. A political science major, he will study Persian Farsi and Tajik with American Councils for International Education (ACIE) in Tajikistan.

David L. Boren Scholarships and Fellowships provide U.S. undergraduate and graduate students with resources to acquire language skills and experience in countries critical to the future security and stability of the U.S. In exchange for funding, Boren award recipients agree to work in the federal government for a period of at least one year. 

Filreis is also one of five Penn Arts and Sciences students to receive Critical Language Scholarships for this summer from the U.S. Department of State. The Critical Language Scholarship (CLS) Program offers intensive summer language institutes with the chance for immersion and cultural excursions. The other students are Jamie Fisher, C’14, and Ronan Maye, C’17, studying Chinese in China; Laura Fabian, GR’16, studying Russian in Russia; and Ethan LaFrance, C’16, studying Turkish in Turkey.

Filreis will learn with about 30 other CLS students in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, this summer. In late August he will begin courses covering literature, journalism, and politics with ACIE’s Eurasian Regional Languages program, also in Dushanbe, as a Boren scholar. All the courses will be conducted in Persian Farsi or Tajik. 

Arts & Sciences News

1 / 2
University of Pennsylvania, Neubauer Family Foundation, and Philadelphia Police Department Partner to Support Police Leadership Education

The first-of-its-kind graduate degree in the U.S. for police leaders launches this fall at the School of Arts & Sciences.

View Article >
Marisa C. Kozlowski Named Next Associate Dean for the Natural Sciences

Kozlowski, who joined the Penn faculty in 1997, succeeds Mark Trodden, who transitions to the Dean of Penn Arts & Sciences on June 1.

View Article >
One Fourth Year, One Alum Receive 2025 Hertz Fellowship

Eric Tao, C’25, Gr’25 (left), and Suraj Chandran, C’23, were awarded the honor, part of a group of 19 fellows selected this year. Each one receives five years of funding toward a doctoral program.

View Article >
Benjamin Nathans Wins 2025 Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction

Nathans, Alan Charles Kors Endowed Term Professor of History, won for his book “To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement.”

View Article >
Mark Devlin Elected to National Academy of Sciences

He joins three others from Penn to receive the honor this year, all recognized for “distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.”

View Article >
Michael Jones-Correa and Sophia Rosenfeld Elected to American Academy of Arts & Sciences

They join three others from the University of Pennsylvania, selected as part of the Academy’s mission to convene leaders from “every field of human endeavor to examine new ideas, address issues of importance to the nation and the world, and work together.”

View Article >