View Content #5417
| Contentid | 5417 |
|---|---|
| Content Type | 1 |
| Title | News Article: Florida Pushes Foreign Languages |
| Body | From http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/11/07/language Florida Pushes Foreign Languages — Paul D. Thacker November 7, 2006 College students at almost every state university in Florida can learn to parlez Français, but they have a much harder time finding courses in Chinese, Arabic and Portuguese. With an eye on jobs, Chancellor Mark Rosenberg is working to establish a Virtual Language Institute, a cooperative effort by all 11 public universities to expand foreign language education. The idea stems, in part, from the university’s attempt to align itself with the state economic development agency called Enterprise Florida. The project makes clear in its list of top issues that it desires Florida’s students to have better proficiency in foreign languages. According to the chancellor’s office, last year, Florida did $4.7 billion in trade with China, and $10.9 billion in trade with Brazil. However, only Florida International University, the University of Florida and the University of North Florida offer courses in Portuguese. Only the University of Florida and Florida International offer Chinese. Rosenberg said that a committee is examining how Florida will expand instruction in these two languages as well as in Arabic, Farsi, Korean and Japanese. With 11 universities and 23 community colleges, he hopes that a virtual institute will be able to cobble together a program that improves capabilities in these languages. “This is about taking advantage of our available expertise and our economy of scale,” he said. Read the entire article at http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/11/07/language . |
| Source | Inside Higher Ed |
| Inputdate | 2006-12-10 10:55:19 |
| Lastmodifieddate | 2006-12-10 10:55:19 |
| Expdate | Not set |
| Publishdate | 2006-12-11 00:00:00 |
| Displaydate | Not set |
| Active | 1 |
| Emailed | 1 |
| Isarchived | 1 |
