MSLIS student Christine Nguyen has been awarded a U.S. Department of State Critical Language Scholarship (CLS) to study Japanese this summer. She is one of four University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign students who received full scholarships to spend 8-10 weeks abroad and study one of 14 critical languages. The program is part of an initiative to expand the number of Americans studying and mastering critical foreign languages and cultural skills to enable them to contribute to U.S. economic competitiveness and national security.
Nguyen earned bachelor’s degrees in Japanese and linguistics from Illinois. She will study advanced Japanese at Okayama University in Okayama, Japan, with her CLS award.
With a passion for preserving and organizing materials that can be discovered and used in posterity, Nguyen's academic and professional goals align on expanding access to Asian library and archival collections. Mastering her Japanese language skills during her CLS study will allow Nguyen, who grew up in San Jose, California, to engage more deeply with primary sources and accurately represent these sources for Japanese scholarship. After her CLS experience and upon completion of her master's degree, she will pursue positions requiring Japanese language expertise with an aim to expand access to under-described or inaccessible Japanese resources in the U.S.
CLS recipients are expected to continue their language study beyond the scholarship and apply their critical language skills in their future careers. Approximately 7 percent of the 4,500 applicants nationwide received a CLS in 2026. This year's recipients come from 49 U.S. states, in addition to the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, and represent 165 U.S. colleges and universities.