Four of Cornell's long-established language and area studies programs -- the Cornell Institute for European Studies (CIES), South Asia Program (SAP), East Asia Program (EAP) and Southeast Asia Program (SEAP) -- have received highly competitive four-year grants from the Department of Education totaling $6.3 million.

The three Asia programs won renewed designation as National Resource Centers (NRC), and all four programs were awarded Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) fellowships.

NRC funds pay for language teachers, library collections, outreach programs, cultural events, conferences and seminars and support faculty research and graduate students. FLAS grants annually support 32 full-time students and 16 students with summer fellowships.

SAP received nearly $1.2 million over four years. "We offer a tremendous variety of languages here, including those that are not taught other places," said Durba Ghosh, acting director. "And Cornell is one of only three institutions to receive funding for its South, Southeast and East Asia programs."

Ding Xiang Warner, director of EAP, which received $2 million, said "To get both NRC and FLAS grants is even more competitive. A total of 126 NRC grants for all world areas were given out by the government this year, covering Asian, European, African and Latin American studies."

Each of the three Asia programs will launch new initiatives with the money. With $2.4 million in new grants, SEAP will launch an initiative to re-establish SEAP as the center for Indonesian studies and internationalize Cornell's curriculum.

"We're trying to get scientists and humanists working together and collaborating," said Tamara Loos, director of SEAP, which is the only Southeast Asia area studies program to receive the NRC designation continuously since this Department of Education program was established in 1960.

The East Asia Program will strengthen foreign language instruction on campus and foster an internationalized curriculum across various colleges to offer more courses covering East Asia. "We want to find ways for instructors in other colleges to collaborate via cross-listed or co-taught courses," Warner said. She also seeks to expand outreach in elementary, middle and high schools, especially in rural areas, through after-school language programs and teacher training programs for K-12 and postsecondary educators of East Asian studies and languages.

Through a partnership with Syracuse University, Ghosh said, the South Asia Program also conducts outreach to "hard-to-reach" schools in upstate New York as well as to military personnel at Fort Drum in northern New York about Afghanistan.

Unlike other South Asia programs, SAP focuses on Sri Lanka, Nepal, Pakistan and Bangladesh. "Our strength is in countries surrounding India," Ghosh said. "It's India-plus. That's why the Cornell library is so good in those fields. It's the library in those fields."

The Cornell Institute for European Studies, directed by Christopher Anderson, will dedicate $700,000 in FLAS funding to support training in Arabic, Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian, Portuguese, Italian, Hebrew, Russian, Polish and Turkish. Like the other programs, CIES promotes advanced language training for science and engineering students.

Fredrik Logevall, director of the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies, the home of all four programs, said the federal funding is welcome news. "I'm delighted that we have real success in a time of stiff competition for NRCs and FLAS," he said. "It's wonderful that the three Asia programs demonstrate yet again how strong we are in Asia [studies and languages]. The large number of additional fellowships available for graduate and undergraduate students will enhance their knowledge of foreign languages, cultures and societies in Europe and Asia. It's going to be great for them, the Einaudi Center and Cornell."