Project Go

In January 2009, the Institute of International Education, on behalf of the National Security Education Program, released a third Request for Proposals. In July 2009, 12 new universities were awarded grants, bringing the total number of grant recipients to 24. Of these 12 institutions, four  were specifically selected because of their offerings in indigenous languages from sub-Saharan Africa and their study abroad programs to corresponding regions.

During the summer of 2009, Project GO provided approximately 236 fully- or mostly-funded opportunities for summer domestic language study and summer language study abroad. Of those 236 funded opportunities, 147 students studied critical languages domestically and 89 students studied critical languages abroad in countries including Tajikistan, China, Morocco and Russia. Scholarship funding was used to cover all or most of the cost of tuition, airfare, room, board, visas, and materials. Students participated through one of thirteen Project GO institutions, half of which made their projects and funding available to ROTC students from across the country; 11 of the 12 newly awarded grantees did not begin their projects until September 2009.

In additional to scholarship support, approximately a third of Project GO funding supported critical language infrastructure at universities. Some examples of institutional critical language infrastructure funded under Project GO during 2009 include an Arabic tutoring center at Virginia Military Institute, additional full-time professors of Chinese at North Georgia College and State University, STEM study abroad program set-up at Georgia Institute of Technology, and academic-year tutoring support for ROTC students at the University of Mississippi and University of Texas, Austin.

Project GO also provided support to participating universities to conduct outreach about project offerings as well as cultural exposure events targeting their ROTC populations. Some examples of outreach and exposure events included Boston University's "Globally Speaking" initiative, which provided a series of not-for-credit language classes to help ROTC students sample and select a critical language to study, James Madison's guest speaker from AFRICOM, and the University of Mississippi's ROTC student conference on U.S. - China relations (attended by 55 ROTC students from across the country who had studied Chinese or China).

Project GO also spent a small percentage of funding on communication initiatives. In January 2009, Project GO launched the first version of its website to assist in publicizing grant-sponsored summer language opportunities. Project GO also conducted two working groups (one on sub- Saharan Africa and one on South and Central Asia) to encourage collaboration among universities, to further communication between ROTC HQs and Project GO universities, and to address the challenges of increasing the number of officers with language skills and regional experience in these two critical regions. In December of 2009, Project GO staff began preparing for the 2010 Project GO national leadership conference, which was held in Phoenix, Arizona on March 4-5, 2010.