Two students in Indiana University of Pennsylvania's Composition and Applied Linguistics doctoral program, Havva Zorluel Özer and Wenqi Cui, have been selected for a 2020 Conference on College Composition and Communication Scholars for the Dream Travel Award.

Only 20 applicants in the nation were selected for the competitive award. Recipients are selected based on originality of research, significance of pedagogical or theoretical contributions to the field, and potential for larger, subsequent projects.

The CCCC is a constituent organization within the National Council of Teachers of English. CCCC sponsors the Scholars for the Dream Awards to encourage scholarship by historically underrepresented groups. Recipients of the awards are invited to present at the annual conference in the spring (held virtually this year because of the coronavirus pandemic) and receive a one-year membership in NCTE and CCCC.

“I am honored and excited to be sponsored by the Conference on College Composition and Communication to present my research on multilingual students' identity construction,” Cui said. “I am also indebted to the faculty and everyone in IUP's Composition and Applied Linguistics doctoral program for their support.

Özer also offered her appreciation to the IUP faculty in the program for their support.

“I am delighted to have won the CCCC Scholars for the Dream Award,” she said. “It is a great honor to be recognized by the selection committee for my work on translingual pedagogy, and I am proud to be part of the dream scholars community. I am grateful to Dr. Cristina Sanchez-Martin from IUP who supported me professionally and inspired me to the translingual scholarship and research. I am also thankful to Dr. Matt Vetter from IUP, without whom I wouldn't have found the courage to apply for such a prestigious award.”

The Conference on College Composition and Communication, with more than 5,000 members and subscribers, supports and promotes the teaching and study of composition, rhetoric, and communication skills at the college level, both in undergraduate and graduate programs. The National Council of Teachers of English, with 25,000 individual and institutional members worldwide, is dedicated to improving the teaching and learning of English and the language arts at all levels of education.