Concordia University Texas hosted a signing event on Wednesday, April 4 to announce the Texas Language Consortium, a collaboration of five private liberal arts colleges in Texas to expand foreign language options to students.
The Consortium is a collaborative pilot program, spearheaded by the National Institute for Technology in Liberal Education (NITLE), a non-profit whose purpose is to help liberal arts colleges and universities integrate pedagogy and technology to enrich undergraduate education and strengthen liberal arts tradition. Participating in the inaugural Consortium are: Concordia University Texas, Lubbock Christian University, Schreiner University, Texas Lutheran University, and Texas Wesleyan University.
The program aims to expand foreign language opportunities to students at all participating universities. Through the programs, students will have an opportunity to enroll for courses in German, French, Mandarin Chinese and Spanish. Enrollment for the courses is managed through the student’s home campus. Each university will provide courses through high definition video conferencing labs with assigned faculty and proctor support.
The signing event featured a demonstration of the technology used to administer the courses, followed by the agreement signing and reception in the President’s office at Concordia University. Attending the signing event were Joseph King and Rebecca Davis from NITLE, and the following university presidents: Tom Cedel from Concordia University Texas (Austin), Tim Summerlin from Schreiner University (Kerrville), Stuart Dorsey from Texas Lutheran (Seguin) and Frederick Slabach from Texas Wesleyan University (Ft. Worth).
“This is the start to an amazing partnership with quality institutions in Texas,” said Dr. Alan Runge, provost at Concordia. “The Consortium allows schools with similar missions and values to expand language options for students by collaborating with other private liberal arts schools in Texas.”
Posted on March 30, 2012 by melinda.brasher@concordia.edu