N.S. natives prepare to spend year in Taiwan to study Mandarin

NORTH SMITHFIELD – Katelyn Dubois and Kaylee Goyette attended local schools together before heading off to the University of Rhode Island, and now they will be heading to Taiwan to study abroad together while honing their Mandarin Chinese language skills with the help of a federal scholarship.

Both students took Spanish language classes before their graduation from North Smithfield High School in 2018, but only started learning Chinese after taking on the International Studies and Diplomacy and Chinese Language Flagship programs at URI.

Dubois and Goyette, now juniors, have each earned Boren Scholarships of up to $25,000 to cover the costs of their overseas studies, according to Dawn Bergantino, a URI public information officer.

URI graduate student Adrianna Wilding of Scituate earned a $25,000 Boren Fellowship to travel to Azerbaijan to study Turkish under Boren’s Turkish Flagship Language Institute under another Boren award for 2021, according to Bergantino.

David L. Boren Awards are among the most prestigious study abroad awards offered American college students, Bergantino noted.

They are given through the National Security Education Program, a federal initiative to expand the number of American citizens with foreign language and international skills. In exchange for its study abroad assistance, Boren participants agree to work for the federal government for at least one year. Since 2011, 27 URI students have received a Boren Award, according to Bergantino.

Although busy with finals last week, Dubois and Goyette still had time to explain how they will benefit from their

Boren scholarships.

“The flagship programs are run by the Department of Defense and they are essentially to teach college students critical languages so that hopefully later on they will have careers in the federal government utilizing their language skills,” Dubois said.

“So the program is designed so that even though we come in knowing pretty much no Chinese at all, by the time you graduate, after your four or five years here, you will have reached the level of proficiency where you can participate in professional conversations pretty much very close to being fluent,” Dubois said.

The Boren Scholarship provides funding for a student to stay in a country where the language they are learning is used and continue their college studies there.

Submitted photos Kaylee Goyette, left, and Kate Dubois, above, both of North Smithfield and both students at the University of Rhode Island, have been awarded Boren Scholarships. They will spend their senior years abroad in Taiwan and studying Mandarin Chinese. The Boren Scholarships are for $25,000 each to cover the costs of their overseas studies.