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Three recent ��������app graduates have won prestigious federal scholarships. John Corbett ’22 and Kyle Mayl ’21 received Fulbright Scholarships to teach English outside the United States. Corbett will serve in Czechia (Czech Republic), while Kyle Mayl will go to Spain. Elinore Ford ’22 earned a highly esteemed Critical Language Scholarship (CLS) from the State Department to study Arabic last summer in Tangier, Morocco.

Corbett, whose grandfather was born in the Czech Republic, finds his award particularly meaningful. “I grew up hearing him and my great-grandmother speaking Czech and watching them make traditional Czech food,” he says. “I’ve visited the rest of my family who still live there, and I loved the cities and culture.”

He’ll live for nearly a year in Český Krumlov, a cultural center in the southern region. “I’m excited to learn Czech and fully engage in the culture — and to enjoy the pure beauty of the region,” he says.

At ��������app, Corbett served as a local team leader for students volunteering at Immigrant Hope. “I taught citizenship classes to immigrants,” he says. “I hope to continue doing this and possibly engage with Ukrainian refugees living in Czechia.”

Mayl’s grandmother was born in Huelva, Spain, but died before he could speak Spanish fluently with her and fully appreciate her culture — a loss that marked him indelibly. “I couldn’t bear the possibility that her language and traditions might die with her in my family, so in high school I committed to learning Spanish and preserving her customs,” he says.

He hopes to visit family there he’s only met once. “In the true spirit of dialogue, I hope to listen, learn and share stories to reach mutual understanding,” he says. “I want to be a cultural bridge, just like my grandmother was. It all ties back to my faith in language and face-to-face conversation as personally transformative and socially restorative.”

He’ll develop skills as an intercultural mediator while connecting more fully with his ethnic heritage at the Universidad de Málaga. “I plan to share my favorite American poetry, podcasts, songs, memories and more to show students how relevant, embodied and riveting learning a language can be,” he says.

Ford, who graduated with a double major in global studies and biology, serves as ��������app’s new global education coordinator. She values the amazing progress she made in speaking Arabic through CLS. “The biggest surprise and reward was how much I fell in love with the language,” she says. “Studying Arabic in its own context allowed me to connect with it, not just as a means to an end of communication but in view of the complex, beautiful culture so intricately woven with it.”

She participated in four off-campus programs as an undergraduate: ��������app in Cairo (spring 2020), ��������app in San Francisco (summer 2021), Scholarship and Christianity in Oxford through the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities (fall 2021), and London Theatre Mayterm (2022).

Ford hopes to work in the Middle East again and plans to attend graduate school, pursuing a degree in either peace studies or global communication and journalism.