Nicholas Price, a junior at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, has been awarded a prestigious William Jefferson Clinton Scholarship.
The 21-year-old Birmingham native, who speaks French and Russian, will further his passion for languages while studying one semester as a Clinton scholar at the American University in Dubai. He leaves Jan. 6, 2012.
“Going to Dubai will help me gain a new perspective on another language,” Price says. “I am hoping to be challenged academically and learn things about the history and present status of the Arab states and Middle East as a cultural entity.”
Price is an international studies major, with minors in linguistics and French, in UAB’s College of Arts and Sciences. He has had an affinity for languages since he was a child, when he would print out translations of “Merry Christmas” and post them around his home.
“Language is something that, even among our conflicts and differences, connects us,” he says.
As many as 10 U.S. students are chosen each semester to participate in the Clinton scholarship program and “expand educational and cultural horizons by studying in the Arab world.” Preference is given to students who show an interest in being exposed for the first time to Middle Eastern or Islamic culture.
Price received several scholarships to study abroad, including the Pushpamala Deosthale International Programs Scholarship for Study Away and the UAB Study Away Scholarship. He recently returned from Prague, Czech Republic, where he participated in the ERASMUS student exchange program. He earned presidential honors for maintaining a perfect grade-point average and is a recipient of the UAB Collegiate Honors Scholarship.
Price is the editor-in-chief of Aura Literary Arts Review and former sports editor of the student newspaper, Kaleidoscope. He was inducted into Pi Delta Phi French Honor Society, is a Foreign Language Ambassador and founding member/partner of the Intensive English Language Program.
As for the future, he is exploring his interest in endangered languages and linguistic efforts to document them.
“I want to work with language,” Price says. “Whether through writing or film, creatively or academically — that’s where my passion is.”
His parents are Ken and Dana Price of Birmingham.