BYU College of Humanities Meeting 2021
COLLEGE CENTERS AND SERVICES Arabic Flagship Center (3122 JKB)
Despite being forced to do everything online this past year, our two capstone students nevertheless certified at ILR 3 in speaking in May. One is now at the American University in Cairo for further study and the other will begin a graduate program in natural language processing at the University of Washington. An Arabic capstone student from our first cohort will begin working shortly as a researcher for the US Department of Justice. Six students are currently doing an online version of the capstone and are planning on traveling to Morocco in August. Three are Boren Scholars and one received a Gilman. Dr. Ahmad Karout, academic coordinator, played a decisive role in recruiting these and helping them to qualify for the capstone experience. All are Arabic second majors. We assisted the University of Arizona in winning the grant competition to take over management of the Overseas Arabic Language Flagship Program. We are grateful to finally see a seasoned Arabist in charge of this key program and anticipate that the capstone year will be an excellent experience for our students. This year, Dr. Belnap will be running BYU’s Fall Intensive Arabic Program in Meknes, Morocco and will therefore have good opportunity
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to observe our capstone students’ experience.
Chinese Flagship Center (3122 JKB)
The Chinese Flagship Center was online due to the COVID pandemic. In spite of this, students did very well on their final OPI, reading, and listening tests. Six students participated in the online academic portion of the capstone program, and two continued on to the online internship portion. Those two that completed the full capstone program scored in the 2+ to 3+ range in the speaking, listening, and reading modalities. These six are now finishing up BYU courses, applying for graduate and programs and medical school, and so on. One student completed his capstone year online through the Taiwan Flagship Center. He scored at the 3 level in all modalities. Four current advanced flagship students are starting their capstone program, one this fall, and three in the coming winter semester. They are planning on going to the Taiwan Flagship Center, unless the COVID situation prevents that. One student received a Boren scholarship which will pay for the entire overseas capstone program. After 30 years in operation, the Nanjing Flagship Center in China,
