Kent State University, along with partners Bowling Green State University and Oberlin College, have received an Ohio Board of Regents grant for $350,000 to establish a summer foreign language academy for high school students.

The academy will offer 50 students, who will be juniors or seniors during the 2007-2008 academic year, the opportunity to study a foreign language—Arabic, Chinese, Japanese or Russian—for four semester hours of college credit. As part of the academy, students will participate in a four-week residential summer language immersion experience at Kent State, tentatively scheduled from June 24 to July 20. While living in a language house, students will attend daily classes followed by evening immersion experiences where they will be exposed to films, games, music, cuisine, conversation using the foreign language. Also included will be presentations by professionals who use foreign languages in their careers. In addition, summer academy students will participate in mini-immersion Saturday sessions during the school year to earn an additional four credits, which will satisfy high school language requirements and count toward fulfilling college language requirements at Ohio universities.

The academy is free for students; tuition, room, board, admission fees and textbooks will be provided. Beyond earning college and high school language credits, extra incentives include a summer stipend and a laptop computer.

For more information, call 330-672-2150 or send e-mail to Gregory Shreve, chair of modern and classical language studies, at gshreve@kent.edu, Brian Baer, director of the academy and Kent State associate professor of Russian, at bbaer@kent.edu, or Rebecca Chism, co-director of the academy and Kent State associate professor of second language pedagogy, at rlchism@kent.edu.