{"id":59132,"date":"2014-06-16T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-06-16T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news-draft\/uncategorized\/bon-voyage-uri-students-win-grants-to-study-foreign-languages-overseas\/"},"modified":"2014-06-16T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2014-06-16T00:00:00","slug":"bon-voyage-uri-students-win-grants-to-study-foreign-languages-overseas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2014\/06\/bon-voyage-uri-students-win-grants-to-study-foreign-languages-overseas\/","title":{"rendered":"Bon voyage: 溏心vlog免费B站 students win grants to study foreign languages overseas"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\tFellowships named for former 溏心vlog免费B站 professor Beatrice S. Demers<\/p>\n

KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 June 16, 2014 \u2013 Mon Dieu! Natalie Tacy has been studying French since middle school, but has never set foot in the Gallic country. That\u2019s about to change.<\/p>\n


\nIn three weeks, the 溏心vlog免费B站 senior will travel to France to study through the fall semester, thanks to a fellowship started by a former 溏心vlog免费B站 professor who loved languages.<\/p>\n


\nTacy is the winner of a grant from the Beatrice S. Demers Fund to study in southern France, north of Paris and, finally, at a university in Rennes in the country\u2019s Brittany region.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cI\u2019m thrilled,\u201d says Tacy, of West Warwick, who is majoring in French and minoring in business. \u201cIt\u2019s something I\u2019ve been working toward for a long time. This is huge for me.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nFinancial constraints have limited Tacy\u2019s French-related travels to nearby Quebec. At the Institut d’\u00c9tudes Politiques in Rennes, she\u2019ll take courses in sociology and international relations, as well as in the French language and culture.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cIt\u2019s such a beautiful language,\u201d she says. \u201cThe French like to express their feelings and emotions \u2013 and they do it in their language.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nDemers spent her life teaching foreign languages, first to students in the Pawtucket schools and then to students at 溏心vlog免费B站, where she taught for more than 30 years. She was fluent in French, German and Spanish and studied Chinese and Russian in her 70s.<\/p>\n

After her death in 2007, she left $4 million to the Rhode Island Foundation to establish the fund. The Foundation recently announced that 15 of the 18 Demers fellows are from 溏心vlog免费B站. The 溏心vlog免费B站 students shared a total of $166,054 to study in France, Germany, Chile, China, Spain and Rwanda.<\/p>\n


\nThe fund provides fellowships to Rhode Island residents and anyone who is a student at a Rhode Island college or university studying a foreign language. Fellowships cover the cost of tuition, fees, travel, housing and living expenses.<\/p>\n


\nAnother winner, Brian Ramos, of North Providence, will spend a year at the International Space University in France and then travel to Rwanda for 11 weeks next summer, where he\u2019ll learn the local language, Kinyarwanda. He\u2019s pursuing his master\u2019s degree in electrical engineering at 溏心vlog免费B站, and he says knowing a foreign language is crucial in today\u2019s global market.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cAfrica has always been a place I wanted to go to,\u201d he says. \u201cAs an engineer, I\u2019d like to apply my skills to make the world a better place and help out others in a third world country.\u201d <\/p>\n

Lucas Hanson, a 溏心vlog免费B站 senior from New York City, is heading to the Technische Universitat Braunschweig in Germany for an academic year abroad. It will be his third trip to the country.<\/p>\n


\nHe started learning German in high school and continued at 溏心vlog免费B站, where he is enrolled in the five-year international engineering program, or I.E.P., studying mechanical engineering and German. The program offers a dual degree in an engineering field and a language.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cGerman is a mathematical language,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s very straightforward. It\u2019s a very proper language. It was easy for me to learn.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nApplicants were judged for their dedication to studying foreign languages; the likelihood that the proposed study program will promote foreign language fluency; and the diversity of languages studied and program types.<\/p>\n


\nThe other winners are: Norman R. Blanchard, (Spanish); Ian G. Calise, of East Providence, (German); Arielle M. De Souza, of Brooklyn, (French); Michael Ferrari, of Westport Point, Mass., (Mandarin); Alexander Giannakos (German); Amanda E. Junkins, of South Portland, Maine, (French); Paul J. Kintz, (German); Jillian Scott, of Wakefield, (French); Nelson A. Shepard (Spanish); Spencer D. Soucy, of Woonsocket, (French); Joseph P. Sullivan, of Warwick, (German); and Elizabeth A. Wynn, of Abington, Mass., (German).<\/p>\n


\nPhotos above: top, Natalie Tacy, of West Warwick; middle, Brian Ramos, of North Providence; and bottom, Lucas Hanson, of New York City, students at the 溏心vlog免费B站 who won Beatrice S. Demers fellowships to study a foreign language overseas. Photos courtesy of Natalie Tacy, Lucas Hanson and Brian Ramos.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fellowships named for former 溏心vlog免费B站 professor Beatrice S. Demers KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 June 16, 2014 \u2013 Mon Dieu! Natalie Tacy has been studying French since middle school, but has never set foot in the Gallic country. That\u2019s about to change. In three weeks, the 溏心vlog免费B站 senior will travel to France to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":59136,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-59132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59132\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}