A defense of the foreign language requirement
(12/11/23 5:00am)
The Oct. 27 guest column “Time to Drop the Foreign Language Requirement” tenders five arguments against the foreign language requirement. I think the arguments are rather weak and, more importantly, shortchange the significance of the humanities and a liberal arts education more generally. Although many Duke students are already multilingual or have been placed into more advanced foreign language courses, the column’s arguments seem to presume a monolingual English-speaking student with no foreign language experience, so let’s review the arguments in that context.