Mission Statement
At the approach of the twenty-first century, Columbia University remains more than ever committed to fulfilling its historic mission of providing for the “Instruction and Education of Youth in the Learned Languages and Liberal Arts and Sciences.”
To accomplish a mission which encourages and suppports the quest for knowledge as more than a simply practical pursuit, Columbia’s undergraduate curriculum combines the breadth of learning provided by general education courses with the solid mastery of a discipline achieved through a major concentration of study. Moreover, because Columbia is a world renowned research university as well as a small liberal arts college, its students are able to pursue their chosen majors to the highest levels of scholarly excellence should they chose to do so.
As an essential part of Columbia University’s, the School of Arts and Sciences is dedicated to helping the University fulfill its mission in a number of disciplines germane to the Humanities and the Social Sciences including the teaching and learning of foreign languages and cultures.
As an integral unit of the School of Arts and Sciences, the Language Resource Center provides a number of key services that significantly enhance Columbia University’s potential to fulfill its historic mission.
The Language Resource Center houses the University’s language laboratory; a facility that makes state-of-the art digital technology available to the Columbia community and provides a conducive environment where students and teachers both can explore and develop technology’s potential to stimulate and strengthen the language curriculum.
The Language Resource Center is deeply committed to the enhancement of language instruction at Columbia University. Accordingly, it resolutely contributes to the improvement of language pedagogy at Columbia by collaborating with the teaching faculty in aggressively exploring alternative models of instruction that challenge commonly accepted paradigms in language instruction especially as these relate to the Less Commonly Taught Languages.
The Language Resource Center assumes a leading role in initiating a dialogue between the various local constituencies who seek to provide viable solutions to the major issues confronting language instruction in general and language instruction in the Less Commonly Taught Languages in particular.
As a unit, the Language Resource Center takes a leading and active role in developing collaborative relationships with other institutional, regional, national, and international partners in order to share resources and expertise related to the teaching and learning of foreign languages and cultures.
Institutionally, the Language Resource Center serves as the administrative unit for a number of less commonly taught languages over which it assumes broad coordinating and supervisory responsibilities. In this capacity, it assesses on a continuing basis the demand for instruction in the Less Commonly Taught Languages in particular and deploys resources as needed to meet these demands.
The Language Resource Center provides space and equipment for faculty and graduate student development.
The Language Resource Center organizes and offers non‑credit conversation courses and tutorials in a number of languages.
The Language Resource Center serves as the locus of interaction between the School of Arts and Sciences and Columbia University’s professional schools with an aim to determining the schools current and future needs in terms of language instruction and formulating the appropriate strategies to meet these needs.
The Language Resource Center collaborates closely with the following departments:
Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures
Department of French and Romance Philology
Department of Germanic Languages
Department of Middle Eastern and Asian Languages and Cultures
Department of Slavic Languages
Department of Spanish and Portuguese
The Language Resource Center also collaborates with the following entities: