This spring Ohio Wesleyan University received a grant of $2 million from the Mellon Foundation for the development of our language programs. Due to an increase interest in non-European languages and current world events, many students at Ohio Wesleyan University wish for the Academic Committee to add Arabic to OWU's language line-up. There has been continued interest in Arabic, so we the Undersigned ask the Committee to take the necessary actions to introduce a new language to our University language curriculum.

Ohio Wesleyan University believes in a Global Education, and that is apparent in the number of languages that the University offers. However, currently many of the languages that we offer do not lead to minors or majors in the languages, and we believe that the University is losing out and hurting its students by not developing and expanding the languages offered in the Modern Foreign Languages Department. In areas such as Comparative Literature, many graduate programs now demand knowledge of a non-western language, preferably in the language of the literature being studied. This puts OWU students enrolled in our Comparative Literature, International Studies, Religions, Classics, and History departments at a disadvantage against those from other universities. In addition, Arabic, Chinese, and Japanese are considered critical languages, all within the top ten spoken languages in the world. The development of these languages at Ohio Wesleyan University will give the University and its students a competitive edge in today's global world. Therefore, we students of Ohio Wesleyan University ask the University to add Arabic Language courses to the Modern Foreign Language department and to continue the development of non-western languages. We ask the university to be a trendsetter instead of a trend follower, allowing OWU students to chart their course in an ever-changing world. And we ask that instead of losing students to schools with Arabic and other languages, to be a leader among liberal arts colleges in the language curriculum offered.