Distinguished Undergraduate Award

This award is to recognize excellent undergraduate students who have exhibited extraordinary accomplishments in their studies of any World Language taught at the University of Virginia. The student must have demonstrated a high aptitude for cultural awareness and sensitivity as a Global Citizen.
Award Amount
• One or more awards for an amount of up to $1,000 will be given.
Eligibility
• Applicants must be undergraduate students who are currently enrolled in at least one of the World Language courses offered at UVa at the 3000 level or above and who will be enrolled at the university in the following Fall semester.
• Applicants must present a sincere devotion to language learning, as well as a deeper interest in and commitment to the learning of at least one of the languages taught at UVa.
• Applicants must hold a minimum GPA of 3.5 in all the language courses they have previously taken at UVa.
Application Materials
The application must include the following materials:
1. A portfolio or personal website that has been endorsed by a language faculty member at UVA and includes the following materials:
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Evidence of the candidate’s achievements in language skills and cultural awareness. Supporting documents may include audio and video samples demonstrating improvement of oral communication skills in the target language, writing samples from several world language courses, and other materials that provide further evidence for the applicant’s progress, communication skills, proficiency, and cultural awareness.
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A personal statement in English, which provides a rationale for the chosen materials and how they demonstrate the applicant’s progress, articulates how language education has made a significant impact on the applicant’s academic as well as personal life, and considers the projected role of language education in the applicant’s future academic and professional engagement as a global citizen in the 21st century.
2. A letter of support from a UVA language faculty member. The letter, which should be written in English and include an evaluation of the materials submitted by the student, must be directly emailed to Pimonwan Kamjan at wdd2vc@virginia.edu
Submission Procedure
• The deadline for student applications is March 31, 2025.
• Students who are interested in submitting electronic materials should contact and send all the material to Pimonwan Kamjan at wdd2vc@virginia.edu. Please be sure to send ALL required materials, ideally as one PDF document.
• For inquiries, please contact the IWL Student Award Committee: Tomomi Sato (ts2fn@virginia.edu) and Maria Esparza Rodriguez (mre4ab@virginia.edu).