Two students have received National Security Education Program David L. Boren scholarships for the 2009-10 academic year. In return, recipients owe the federal government a year of service, which usually occurs in Washington D.C.

Ashley Harris of Louisville, a senior political science major with a minor in Middle East and Islamic studies, will attend the Rothberg International School of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Harris began learning Hebrew in summer 2007 when she enrolled at Hebrew University to study Israeli government and politics.

She previously won the U.S. State Department’s Critical Language Scholarship to study beginning Arabic in Jordan in the summer of 2008.

A graduate of DuPont Manual High School, Harris has been active in her sorority, Sigma Kappa, the University Honors Program and the UofL College Democrats.

Emily Rath
Emily Rath of Burlington, Ky., a junior with a double major in political science and philosophy and a minor in Asian Studies, will be in the Asian studies program at the Nakamiya Campus of Kansai Gaidai University in Japan.

Rath will use her NSEP Boren award in conjunction with a University of Louisville/Kansai Gaidai University Student Exchange Scholarship she won earlier this year.

Her Boren award also will fund her participation in the Japan-America Student Conference, an academic and cultural exchange between the United States and Japan that opens with an orientation in Seattle before the participants travel to Tokyo, Hakodate, Nagano, Kyoto and Osaka. Each year, 72 students from U.S. and Japanese universities spend an intense month living, traveling and studying together while they meet leaders in business, academia, and government to discuss issues that affect their countries and the world. Rath is a graduate of Conner High School.

Since 2005, 10 UofL students or graduates have received Boren scholarships. The scholarship funds a full academic year of study in a country of national security interest for students studying languages and subjects of particular national security relevance.