Gary Schmidt, professor and chair of the Department of\nLanguages and Intercultural Studies, has been awarded a U.S. Department of\nEducation grant for $191,000 over two years to support the development of an\nIntercultural Language Resource Center. Schmidt offered his insights on the impetus\nfor the project and his vision for the future of language incorporation across disciplines\nat CCU.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Schmidt reflected on the grant and the center as a tool to allow students to not only learn but apply the languages they acquire in authentic settings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMy vision for the center has been guided by something I\u2019ve\nbeen trying to do since I got here to CCU: create more connections for studying\nlanguage and culture across the disciplines,\u201d said Schmidt. \u201cWe need to foster\nways for students to apply language study to other disciplines, to actively use\ntheir language knowledge in research questions or some sort of active\nengagement in another discipline.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Two examples Schmidt gives are students in an intelligence\nand national security studies class who would benefit from reading intelligence\nand news briefs in the original language, or students in a Russian literature\nclass having the ability to read the original text rather than an English\ntranslation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe center will be a place that supports these types of activities,\u201d said Schmidt. \u201cIt will provide resources such as film and media databases and subscriptions to specialized proficiency analysis sites. These will help students may acquire the advanced proficiencies they need to utilize the language in real-life situations, in contexts that cross disciplinary boundaries. The center and its resources may also bring in students from other disciplines who might otherwise have not seen the connection and the relevance of language study.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Schmidt said the center will have two major goals. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe first goal is to increase the number of students doing\narea studies [such as Asian studies, European studies, or Middle Eastern\nstudies] with a language component, so they\u2019re doing language culture study\nacross disciplines,\u201d said Schmidt. \u201cSecondly, the center will increase\nsubstantially the number of students who have a certain level of proficiency in\nany language, but especially a critical language: Chinese, Russian, or Arabic.\u201d\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the end of the two-year grant period, Schmidt hopes to\nhave built a new dimension in cross-disciplinary language learning and\nproficiency at CCU.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMy vision is that after the grant period ends, we will have\ncreated new interdisciplinary courses in which foreign language skills are\nutilized,\u201d said Schmidt. \u201cWe will have a center that regularly offers events\nand programming related to language and cultural learning across the\ndisciplines: a place where we have guest speakers, film screenings and\ndiscussions, readings, reading groups,\nlanguage group meetings, and the like, with involvement from other faculty and\nstudents from other disciplines. It will also be a place where students in the\ncollege can go and be advised on opportunities related to interdisciplinary\nlanguage studies including study abroad and scholarships. And we will see, as a\nresult of available resources, demonstrable improvement in number of students\nleaving CCU with advanced proficiency in a language.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Gary Schmidt, professor and chair of the Department of Languages and Intercultural Studies, has been awarded a U.S. Department of Education grant for $191,000 over two years to support the development of an Intercultural Language Resource Center. Schmidt offered his insights on the impetus for the project and his vision for the future of language…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":595,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[72,69,71,68,70],"class_list":["post-592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-faculty-voices","tag-critical-languages","tag-cross-disciplinary","tag-grant","tag-language","tag-language-resources"],"yoast_head":"\n