Eric Alper, a graduate student in the Master of Public Administration (MPA) program, was recently selected as a Boren Fellowship awardee. The Boren Awards are an initiative of the Department of Defense National Security Education Program, which offers fully-funded (up to $30,000), long-term overseas study of less commonly taught languages in world regions critical to U.S. interests and national security. Boren Fellows represent a vital pool of highly motivated individuals who plan to pursue careers in the U.S. federal government. Eric applied to study Hindi through Boren’s South Asian Flagship Languages Initiative (SAFLI) during the 2022-2023 academic year. The SAFLI program includes U.S. domestic language study at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and overseas language study at the American Institute of Indian Studies in Jaipur, India.
Eric is the first graduate student in the MPA program, and the fifth graduate student at Texas State, to receive the prestigious and highly competitive Boren Fellowship since the Graduate College started offering external funding advising services in 2016. Eric is also Texas State’s first Boren awardee to the SAFLI program.
