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FLAS Reception Held in September

On September 20, 2011, a reception for the 2011-12 FLAS fellows was hosted by the five Duke centers who administer the FLAS fellowships with support from the Office of Global Strategy and Programs, International and Area Studies, and the Department of Asian and Middle East Studies (AMES). This event was the first ever all Duke FLAS reception to honor all current recipients, which each year number between 50 and 60 students.

Dr. Gil Merkx, Director of International and Area Studies, made welcoming remarks, which were followed by Dean Laurie Patton's talk on "Recognizing the Importance of Foreign Language and Area Studies in Today’s World."Kelly Schwehm,

Program Coordinator for the Duke University Middle Eastern Studies Center (DUMESC), noted that "One of the nicest things that happened during the reception was that the fellows were able to meet each other. I heard several students say that they had no idea there were so many FLAS fellows at Duke and that so many interesting languages were represented. In fact, many of the students from our center did not know each other because they do not all go to the same place to study during the summer. Or we have the case where we have one student studying Polish, or only one student studying Thai, or Hindi. For them, it really nice to meet other students studying other less commonly taught languages."