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CORVALLIS - A grant from the National Security Education Program will help provide new international opportunities for Oregon State University undergraduate students.

The $406,000 grant funds the International Undergraduate Research Program, coordinated by the International Programs Office located on the fourth floor of Snell Hall on the OSU campus. The original grant was awarded to the campus in 2000 but OSU recently received permission to expand the programs it offers under the grant.

The expansion will fund the establishment of an Arabic language program at OSU and allow the university to increase the number of academic areas it can provide scholarships for to assist undergraduate overseas research proposals. In the past, these scholarships were focused on research projects in environmental sciences, public health and political science.

OSU plans to begin teaching Arabic in the fall. Students will be able to qualify for scholarships to study the language at a new program in Tunisia.

Students interested in the Arabic language program and studying in Tunisia should contact Joseph Krause, chair of Foreign Languages and Literatures, at 541-737-2146.

Undergraduate research projects in Russia, China, Japan, Ecuador, Vietnam, Thailand, and South Africa will be considered for funding through the new grant. A research proposal may involve any academic area and should be developed in cooperation with another student so as to form a research team. The OSU team is joined by a student from a partner university overseas.

A research team works in collaboration with an OSU faculty member or graduate student who has extensive experience with the research topic and overseas environment. Students accepted in the program receive an average scholarship of $1,500.

For more information about the scholarships, contact Marit Legler in International Programs at 737-3772 or marit.legler@orst.edu. Details are available on the International Programs Website.