2005 Winners of AFSA's Sinclaire Language Awards

Sinclaire Language Awards Winners 2005
Proficiency in foreign languages is one of the key skills valued by the Foreign Service. AFSA’s Sinclaire Language Awards program helps to recognize achievement in the study of hard langauges.

The Sinclaire endowment was established in 1982 with a $175,000 bequest to AFSA from Matilda W. Sinclaire, a former Foreign Service officer. Ms. Sinclaire sought to promote and reward superior achievement by career officers of the Foreign Service while studying one of the "hard" languages under the auspices of the Foreign Service Institute. In 2001, the guidelines were updated and amended to expand eligibility for the awards to any career or career conditional member from any of the foreign affairs agencies: State, USAID, FCS, FAS and IBB.

Candidates for the award are nominated annually by the language-training supervisors or instructors at the FSI School of Language Studies. In the field schools, candidates may be nominated by supervisors or post language officers. A committee composed of a chairperson who is an AFSA Governing Board member, the Dean of the FSI School of Language Studies, and the AFSA Coordinator for Professional Issues select the winners. The nomination should include the following documents:

Completed Sinclaire Award Nomination Form (obtained from FSI or AFSA), signed by the nominator and his/her immediate supervisor.
Evidence of enrollment, if nomination is based on formal training (in the case of FSI students, the end of Training Report DS-651).
Nominating Statement.

Each of the winners receives a check for $1,000 from the Matilda W.Sinclaire Endowment and a certificate of recognition signed by the president of AFSA and the chair of the AFSA Awards committee. Over $150,000 has been awarded to members of the Foreign Service who have received recognition for their superior language skills through this program.

AFSA congratulates the winners of the 2005 Matilda W. Sinclaire Language Awards for excellence in the study of hard languages and associated cultures:

William Davnie	Finnish
Bradley R. Evans	Albanian
Jeanne Gallo	Polish
Daniel Gedacht	Polish
Eric A. Johnson	Estonian
Peter Kaufman	Lithuanian
Stephen Mull	Lithuanian
Long Nguyen	Tagalog
Rebecca Owen	Korean
Jessica Patterson	Hebrew
John Senior	Bulgarian
Ningchuan F. Zhu	Albanian

AFSA is currently accepting nominations for Sinclaire Language Awards for 2006. The deadline for submitting nominations is December 29, 2006. For further information, please contact Barbara Berger at berger@afsa.org or 202-338-4045, ext. 521.