IN THE SPRING OF 2021, the Chanticleer Intelligence Brief, in association with the Intercultural Language Resource Center (ILRC) at Coastal Carolina University, launched its innovative and ambitious Language Officer program. The mission of the CIB is to deepen students’ regional familiarity and depth of knowledge on a topic that relates to a timely issue of concern to the national security of the United States. The majority of these topics include an intercultural and language component. It follows that the CIB’s mission would be greatly enhanced through its interaction with the ILRC at Coastal Carolina University.

Therefore, starting in the spring semester of 2021 the CIB implemented a new layer of officers, called Language Officers. The purpose of the Language Officers is three-fold: first, to build connections between the CIB membership and the ILRC at CCU, by encouraging CIB members to make use of ILRC assets and resources; second, to mentor CIB members with similar regional and/or topic-based interests that require linguistic, intercultural and topical familiarization, by steering them toward language acquisition; and third, to act as ILRC ambassadors in the CIB, by distributing news and information about ILRC resources and activities among their peers, both during and outside of official CIB meetings.

The program is funded through the “Building Collaborative Area Studies through an Interdisciplinary Language Resource Center” grant, which was awarded by the United States Department of Education’s Undergraduate International Studies and Foreign Language Program, and matched generously by CCU. This semester the CIB has six Language Officers. They are: Vladislav Chugunov (Russian), Maxim Kozlov (Russian); Justin Ross (Mandarin); Chloe Tucker (French); Sandra Ataalla (Arabic); and Ana Maria Lankford (Spanish).

The CIB wishes to thank the United States Department of Education, the ILRC, and CCU for their generous support of this program.