Virginia Military Institute has received a $665,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Defense to expand its Arabic language program.

VMI is one of eight schools to receive the funding through the defense department's ROTC Language and Culture Project, which aims to increase the study of languages and cultures of parts of the world vital to U.S. security interests.

Arabic is already the second most studied language at VMI behind Spanish, said Brig. Gen. Charles F. Brower IV, deputy superintendent for academics at the military school. Seven VMI cadets graduated last week with a major in Arabic, and 26 current students have declared their intention to major in the language.

The three-year grant will allow VMI to establish a "writing, reading and oral/aural center in Arabic" in VMI's department of modern languages and cultures, said VMI spokesman Lt. Col. Stewart MacInnis.

Additionally, he said, the grant will provide scholarships for Arabic study abroad to cadets who plan to accept military commissions, and it will pay for summer programs at U.S. institutions in which commissioning cadets minoring or majoring in Arabic would be immersed in the language.

Twelve cadets already have been selected for 2008 summer scholarships: 10 plan to study in Morocco while two plan to undergo immersion training at Dartmouth College. School officials said they anticipate the grant will fund 48 such scholarships over three years.

Also receiving grants were the Georgia Institute of Technology, North Georgia College and State University, Louisiana State University and Texas A&M University, Arizona State University the University of Utah and the University of South Florida.

-- Rex Bowman