In 2018, a record 11 area studies centers and programs at HLS were awarded grant funding for 18 separate programs under the Department of Education's prestigious Title VI program. The outcome was the best in the 60-year history of Title VI at IU and affirms the university's vision for the Hamilton Lugar School to strengthen and revitalize area studies on the Bloomington campus by bringing area and international studies under one roof.

What is Title VI?

Title VI centers are essential to the development of American expertise in critical languages and cultures, as well as to fostering international education. In awarding the grants, the Department of Education designated eight HLS programs as National Resource Centers:

• African Studies Program
• Byrnes Russian and East European Institute (has received funding since its establishment in 1958)
• Center for the Study of Global Change
• Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies
• Center for the Study of the Middle East
• East Asian Studies Center (with the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana)
• Inner Asian and Uralic National Resource Center
• Institute for European Studies

The Hamilton Lugar School's Center for Languages of the Central Asian Region and National African Languages Resource Center also received four-year funding through Title VI as National Language Resource Centers. In addition, the Islamic Studies Program and seven of the eight National Resource Centers received Foreign Language and Area Studies awards.