Harvard Faculty Approve Two-Year Trial to Share Language Courses with Peer Schools

Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences voted Tuesday to pilot a partnership with peer institutions that will allow undergraduates to take less commonly taught language courses through live online instruction beginning next fall.

The two-year trial of the Shared Course Initiative will let Harvard students enroll in language courses offered at Columbia University when those languages are not taught at Harvard. In return, Harvard will offer at least one language course not taught at Columbia. Though the courses will rely on teleconferencing technology, students at both institutions will attend class in person.

Harvard currently offers courses in more than 80 languages — more than any peer institution. Among the languages Harvard may contribute to the SCI are Uyghur and Chaghatay, according to Vice Provost for International Affairs Mark C. Elliott.

But many of Harvard’s smaller language programs have long drawn single-digit enrollments and require substantial financial support. The SCI, proposed by the FAS’ Foreign Language Advisory Group, could help reduce the costs of sustaining Harvard’s language offerings while giving students access to languages not currently taught on campus, faculty wrote in a proposal for the program.

Harvard will join Yale University, Columbia University, and Cornell University, which already collaborate on SCI courses. The initiative offered 23 language courses in spring 2026, roughly a third of which were not available at Harvard, according to the faculty proposal.

The SCI is the latest effort to rethink Harvard’s language programs after a contentious push to reorganize parts of the Arts and Humanities division. In 2023, a divisional committee floated a proposal to merge Germanic Languages and Literatures, Romance Languages and Literatures, and Slavic Languages and Literatures — along with the secondary field in Celtic Languages and Literatures — into a single “Languages, Literatures, and Cultures” concentration.

At Tuesday’s meeting, Arts & Humanities Dean Sean D. Kelly said the program would strengthen language instruction at a moment of financial pressure for the FAS.

Language study is a graduation requirement at Harvard College. Students must complete two semesters of language instruction or demonstrate equivalent proficiency.

Kelly said language instruction remains among the most important priorities for the Arts and Humanities division. But he also acknowledged that the division was hit hard by recent budget cuts, including a 25 percent reduction to non-tenure-track faculty budgets — a move that disproportionately affected language programs, which rely heavily on non-ladder faculty.

Still, Kelly said the FAS will not eliminate any existing language programs next year.

“The SCI will give the opportunity to students to learn languages that we are not currently able to offer when they are taught at other SCI partner institutions,” he said.

Elliot promised faculty that the SCI pilot would not result in the replacement of existing language offerings.

“At the last meeting, it was asked whether languages would be replaced — that is not provided for in this arrangement,” Elliot said on Tuesday. “The SCI would on the contrary provide greater stability and sustainability to the offering of languages we are able to teach here.”

Elliott emphasized that SCI courses will not be conventional Zoom classes. Instructors will receive training, while students will gather in classrooms on their home campuses. The program aims to create opportunities for students from participating institutions to meet at least once a year.

The pilot is expected to cost $86,000 over two years, according to the proposal — a number that includes classroom technology and administrative costs. Harvard’s language offerings in fall 2024 cost the FAS roughly $440,000, per the proposal.

Rooms in the Science Center have already been outfitted with the teleconferencing equipment needed to host the classes, Elliot said.

Faculty approved the proposal unanimously. The FAS will review Harvard’s participation after two years, at which point faculty can vote to withdraw from the initiative or commit to a five-year term.

—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.