Scholarships and Awards

The Percy Buchanan Award was created by Professor Sidney Brown, emeritus professor of Japanese History. The award is named in honor of Percy Buchanan, another former OU professor of Asian Studies who inspired many students during his teaching career. Many former students of Professors Buchanan and Brown have contributed to the endowment that makes this award possible. We would like to express a heartfelt thanks to all those generous donors.

The Percy Buchanan Scholarship is awarded annually to the most deserving student in the School of International and Area Studies, specializing in Asian Studies. Individuals may be nominated by the faculty in the department. The amount of the award is $1000 for 2006.

2007 Recipient: Erin Weeks
2006 Recipient: Anna Twitchell
2005 Recipient: Christine Phan
2004 Recipient: Nathaniel Kretchun
2003 Recipient: Natalie Corr
2002 Recipient: Kimberly Woodland

This program, also known as the National Security Education Program (NSEP) enables U.S. graduate or undergraduate students to pursue overseas specialization in area and language study and was created by then Senator David L. Boren in 1991. Specifically, Boren Scholarships (for undergraduate students) and Fellowships (for graduate students) provide financial support to study languages, cultures, and world regions that are deemed critical to U.S. national security but are less frequently studied by U.S. students. Areas of the world that are never eligible for the NSEP are Western Europe, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand and languages such as Spanish, French, German, etc.

While language focus is always changing, examples of recently awarded language programs have been in Chinese, Arabic and Turkish. All participating students must be concurrently participating in an academic program at the time of participation as an NSEP scholar. Limited to U.S. citizens, this program has a federal government service agreement attached to the award and would require work by the recipient at an approved federal position after completion.

For further information about this program and an exhaustive list of focused languages and service sites, please go to this website: www.borenawards.org
Also, please feel free to contact the OU campus representative for NSEP: Jack Hobson jhobson@ou.edu.

WIN $500 for a paper!!!
Enter SIAS’s writing contest in Latin American Studies

• Open to undergraduate majors and minors in the School of International and Area Studies.
• $500 will go to the best paper on any Latin American topic. Papers will be judged on strength and originality of research, argument, method, writing, and insight.
• Papers must be at least 15 pages, typed, and double-spaced. Papers originally written for classes are eligible.
• Submission deadline is 1 February 2009. One hard copy of the paper must be submitted in Prof. Alan McPherson’s box in Hester Hall 106 and an electronic copy must be sent to mcpherson@ou.edu.  Remember to include how to reach you!
• Winner will be announced in spring 2009

Click here for flyer (pdf opens in another window)

For more scholarships and awards, please visit the International Programs Center Scholarships page here.