Harvard Eyes Ivy Partnership to Sustain Small Language Courses

Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences is moving toward a partnership with peer institutions to expand instruction in less commonly taught languages — a shift administrators say could broaden access for students while helping stabilize small, costly programs under mounting financial pressure.

Under the proposed Shared Course Initiative, Harvard would join Yale University, Columbia University, and Cornell University in a cross-registration system that allows students to take language courses not offered on their home campus. Though classes would require teleconferencing, students would still meet in person for classes at both institutions.

The FAS’s Foreign Language Advisory Group proposed a two-year pilot program with Columbia beginning in fall 2026. Harvard would both offer and receive at least one language during the trial. If the pilot succeeds, the University would enter a five-year agreement to fully participate in the initiative beginning in 2028.

The proposal — several years in development — was approved unanimously by the FAS’s Faculty Council.

Administrators said on Tuesday that the program would expand Harvard’s already extensive language offerings while addressing a persistent challenge: how to sustain courses that often enroll only a handful of students. Many less commonly taught languages at Harvard are currently offered as tutorials, which can serve as few as one or two students and require significant faculty time.

By contrast, courses in the SCI would enroll up to 12 students across participating schools. Students would receive Harvard credit and grades even when the course is taught by a partner institution.

Roughly one-third of the languages currently offered through the initiative are not taught at Harvard, according to the proposal. In recent years, participating universities have offered courses in languages such as Finnish, Ukrainian, and Zulu — as well as Punjabi, Cherokee, and Khmer, which are unavailable at Harvard.

Harvard, for its part, according to Vice Provost for International Affairs Mark C. Elliott, could contribute courses in languages like Uyghur, Chaghatay, or those offered through its African Languages Program.

The FAS has long struggled to work with small language departments. In 2023, a committee within the Arts and Humanities division floated consolidating three language concentrations and a secondary field into a single concentration — a proposal that faced fierce backlash from faculty.

Even as overall enrollment in language courses has declined nationwide, interest in less commonly taught languages has remained steady — and in some cases intensified. At Harvard, programs have fielded requests for instruction in languages such as Cantonese and Taiwanese that are difficult to accommodate within existing structures.

The SCI also promises to formalize a system Harvard has long relied on in piecemeal fashion. Tutorials — often the only option for students studying niche languages — require substantial instructional resources for very small groups. In fall 2024 alone, such offerings cost Harvard roughly $440,000, according to the proposal.

The proposal arrives at a moment of acute financial strain for the FAS, raising concerns among some faculty about how the program might be used.

The FAS reported being on track for a $365 million structural budget deficit last year and has since moved to cut 25 percent of non-tenure-track faculty budgets across divisions — a decision that would significantly impact language programs, which rely heavily on non-ladder faculty. A University-wide hiring freeze and limits on term appointments have only compounded the pressure.

During Tuesday’s faculty meeting, some professors said they worried that the initiative could become a justification for scaling back instruction on campus.

Germanic Languages and Literatures Chair Alison Frank Johnson said she was concerned that, in her view, the SCI could be used to justify cutting in-house courses.

She pointed to the Scandinavian program, which has a single time-capped preceptor.

FAS spokesperson James M. Chisholm declined to comment on her criticism.

But Elliot emphasized during the Tuesday meeting that the SCI would “complement” existing offerings at Harvard — not replace them — with the aim of seeing higher enrollment in courses that tend to have enrollment in the single digits.

“Courses in the Shared Course Initiative cannot take the place of Harvard language instruction that’s already here, so this is not going to remove anybody from their current position,” he said. “The exchange is limited only to less commonly taught languages or very less commonly taught languages.”

—Staff writer Abigail S. Gerstein can be reached at [email protected] and on Signal at abbysg.97. Follow her on X @abbysgerstein.

—Staff writer Amann S. Mahajan can be reached at [email protected] and on Signal at amannsm.38. Follow her on X @amannmahajan.