The Graduate Center Awarded Funding for National Language Resource Center (LRC)

The Graduate Center has been awarded a U.S. Department of Education grant to establish a National Language Resource Center (LRC), a highly selective honor that will enhance research and development of language education. The new center will operate as part of the Institute for Language Education in Transcultural Context (ILETC).

Led by nationally and internationally recognized language professionals, LRCs create language learning materials, offer professional development workshops, and conduct research on foreign language learning. The Graduate Center is one of just 13 institutions nationwide to receive funding, among them Duke University, UCLA, and Pennsylvania State University.

The new center will focus on language education in the community college context, heritage language learners, and the use of educational technology to advance intercultural competence, in partnership with several senior and community colleges within CUNY.

The Department of Education created the first LRCs at U.S. universities in 1990 to meet a growing need for expertise and competence in foreign languages. Supported by grants under Title VI of the Higher Education Act, the centers have since provided essential teacher training, research, materials development, and dissemination projects. Their common goal is to improve the nation's capacity for teaching and learning foreign languages.

All LRCs are engaged in "exciting and substantive efforts that are changing the perception and practice of foreign language study, enabling the United States and its people to better work and serve and lead in the 21st century," according to the U.S. Department of Education.