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Croft News
August 31, 2015
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Croft Graduate Wins National Portz Scholarship

In July, we learned that 2015 Croft graduate Amir Aziz had been chosen as one of four winners of the national Portz Scholarship by the National Collegiate Honors Council.  As a winner, he has been invited to present his thesis, "Al-Arabiyyah, Le Français, and the Soul of Algeria: The Language Tango between Arabic and French in Algerian Education Policy and Defining Post-Colonial Algerian National Identity," at the 2015 NCHC National Conference in November. 

Having come to the University of Mississippi from Singapore, Amir studied both Arabic and French, and his thesis was written under the direction of Dr. Vivian Ibrahim.  Amir used both Arabic- and French-language sources and conducted surveys in both languages with young people in Algeria.  As Dr. Ibrahim commented, "His thesis is a huge contribution to the field as it deals with Algeria, a country often ignored in the context of the Middle East."

Amir has begun a Ph.D. in French at the University of Texas at Austin.  He is the second Croft graduate to win a Portz Scholarship in the last five years.  The other is Ryan Parsons, who won in 2011, and, after a earning a masters degree in development studies from the University of Cambridge and working as the program coordinator for the McLean Institute for Public Service and Community Engagement here at the University of Mississippi, is now pursuing a Ph.D. in Sociology at Princeton University.