Vanessa Dempel, 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.
Vanessa applied to study Turkish through Boren’s Turkish Flagship Languages Initiative (TURFLI) during the 2023-2024 academic year. The TURFLI program includes U.S. domestic language study at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and overseas language study at the Azerbaijan University of Languages in Baku, Azerbaijan.
Vanessa is Texas State’s first Boren awardee to the TURFLI program. Vanessa is also the second graduate student in the MPA program, to receive the prestigious and highly competitive Boren Fellowship since The Graduate College started offering external funding advising services in 2016.
