MSU-Led Initiative Strengthens and Expands Access to Less Commonly Taught and Indigenous Language Education Across North America
After nearly a decade of transformative language revitalization work, Michigan State University’s Center for Language Teaching Advancement (CeLTA) in the College of Arts & Letters has completed a landmark initiative strengthening and expanding access to less commonly taught and Indigenous language education at dozens of universities and in communities across the United States and Canada. From 2016 to 2025, the Less Commonly Taught and Indigenous Languages Partnership, funded by the Mellon Foundation, leveraged the established strengths of the Big Ten Academic Alliance (BTAA) to collaboratively develop sustainable models for less commonly taught language (LCTL) instruction grounded in proficiency-oriented best practices. Overall, the $3.5 million
