I applaud The Herald for taking a stand to support the foreign language requirement at Cornerstone. Our new identity, mission and vision statements all point to our desire to be global influencers. The vision statement even includes that we seek to be a “culturally diverse learning environment.” Linguistics shows that language cannot be separate from culture. I also applaud the journalism program for their visionary work maintaining the language requirement.

Bilingual graduates have a definite advantage in the job market. “Understanding” culture only scratches the surface; we must learn to speak other languages to truly understand people. It gives a new perspective to the term “worldview.”

I encourage every student at CU to take foreign language courses. We must seek, with all humility, to be gracious visitors as we travel and must not assume the world will speak English for us.

I am excited that CU will start offering Arabic this fall in addition to our courses in Spanish, French and Latin. We also want to offer other courses such as Japanese, German and Chinese. We can only do so when there is student demand for such courses.

- Michael Pasquale

Chair, Humanities Division