AFSA Announces the Winners of the 2007 Matilda W. Sinclaire Awards

Proficiency in foreign languages is one of the most valuable and important skills in today’s Foreign Service.  AFSA’s Sinclaire Language Awards program honors language students for outstanding accomplishments in the study of a “hard” language and their associated cultures.  Candidates for the award are nominated by the language-training supervisors at the FSI School of Language, or by the language instructors at the field schools. They are selected by a committee composed of volunteer AFSA members, a member of the Governing Board who serves as chairman and the AFSA Coordinator for Professional Issues.  Each of the winners receives a check for $1,000 from the Matilda W. Sinclaire Endowment and a certificate of recognition signed by the AFSA President and the chair of the AFSA Awards committee. 

In an unusual move, the committee decided to award one of this year’s recipients, Drew Schufletowski, an additional $500, in recognition of his extraordinary accomplishment.  He is the only foreign language student in Polish to achieve outstanding success while enrolled solely as an online student for three semesters.  During his testing at FSI, he received a score of 4 in speaking and a 4 in reading.   He achieved this while working full-time with the U.S. Mission to the U.N.  

The number of nominations submitted during 2007 were the most ever received by AFSA.  A total of 21 nominations were considered by the committee.   The languages included Chinese, Japanese, Dari, Farsi, Hungarian, Polish, Lithuanian and Ukrainian. 

AFSA congratulates the 16 winners of this year’s Sinclaire Language Award, and commends the School of Language Studies at FSI for its dedication in preparing students of hard languages for the intense challenges of modern diplomacy. 

This year’s winners are: