As the organizer of this year’s Cultures and Languages across the Curriculum (CLAC) conference I would like to invite you to participate and engage with faculty and staff CLAC practitioners, from across and outside of the United States in this two-day, all-day event on our campus on April 16 and 17.
As you will quickly see from the conference program and from a more elaborate description of CLAC on my blog, CLAC is by no means a concept limited to modern languages, but rather spans all disciplines and fields of application. In a nutshell: Institutions of all types and size that have a form of CLAC (also referred to as FLAC/C-LAC/LAC/LxC) participate in the shared idea that: “Knowledge exists within and is shaped by culture and, therefore, just as materials in many languages can and should be incorporated into all parts of the curriculum, intercultural perspectives can and should inform the teaching of academic content in many curricular contexts… CLAC strives to make translingual and transcultural competence a reality for all students, not simply for those who major in a foreign language or participate in immersive study abroad programs. CLAC engages languages (and intercultural perspectives) to achieve a better and more multi-faceted understanding of content. It focuses less on bringing disciplinary content or culture into the language classroom than on assimilating languages and cultures into instruction and research across a wide range of disciplinary and interdisciplinary contexts.” (CLAC Consortium)
If you are interested in these ideas, the conference will be a rich source for learning more about CLAC theory, pedagogy, and the institutionalization and practice of CLAC concepts both from the perspective of CLAC teaching faculty as well as CLAC administrators. The conference spans over two days with all day long events such as plenary sessions, panels, keynote speakers plus two luncheons and a lovely dinner with entertainment from Denison’s amazing Denison Bluegrass Ensemble on the evening of the first conference day.
Our keynote speakers are Adam Weinberg who will welcome our guests to campus and give the first keynote address, “The Internationalization of U.S. Higher Education: Reflections of a New College President,” at the luncheon on the first day, and Rosemary Feal, Executive Director Modern Languages Association, who will give her keynote address on “Language Trends, Trendy Languages: the MLA Perspective,” at the luncheon on the second day.
I look forward to welcoming you to Denison in the spring!
GABRIELE DILLMANN 