Cultures and Languages Across the Curriculum (CLAC)

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CLAC is designed to enrich coursework by encouraging students to study texts and materials in languages other than English, which they typically can’t do in standard content courses due to unavoidable limitations in these settings. The program provides students with opportunities to explore Asian language interests outside of the language classroom and across a wide-ranging curriculum in humanities, social and environmental sciences, or professional fields such as engineering or business. CLAC allows students to integrate Asian language skills into content study in their field of interest, allowing them to enrich their studies of both. As defined by the nationwide CLAC Consortium: 

CLAC supports translingual and transcultural competence as 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 nuanced 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.

See a March 2019 story from the Colorado Arts & Sciences Magazine about our CLAC program.

CAS received funding from the College of Arts & Sciences to launch a CLAC pilot project over the 2017-18 academic year. Since then, we have worked with faculty members to develop one-credit CLAC courses taught in conjunction with the following existing courses:

2025-2026

  • Introduction to South Asian Civilization (HIND 1011), Nidhi Arya, Hindi/Urdu

2024-2025

  • Women and the Supernatural in Chinese Literature (CHIN 3361), Dr. Katherine Alexander, Chinese
  • Speaking the Truth: Women’s Counter-narratives of Korea and Japan (JPNS 3611), Dr. Marjorie Burge, Japanese

2023-2024

  • Ancient Chinese Philosophy and Culture in Internet Sources and Popular Comics (CHIN 3321), Dr. Matthias Richter, Chinese

2022-2023

  • Love, Death, and Desire: Classical Japanese Literature in Translation (JPNS 3811), Dr. Marjorie Burge, Japanese
  • Chinese Media and the Environment (CHIN 3372), Dr. Evelyn Shih, Chinese
  • Women and the Supernatural in Chinese Literature (CHIN 3361), Dr. Katherine Alexander, Chinese

2021-2022

  • Love, Death, and Desire: Classical Japanese Literature in Translation (JPNS 3811), Dr. Marjorie Burge, Japanese 

2019-2020

  • Screening India: A History of Bollywood Cinema (HIND 3441), Dr. Rahul Parson, Hindi/Urdu
  • The Arabic Novel (ARAB 3330), Dr. Levi Thompson, Arabic
  • Devotional Literature in South Asia (HIND 3851), Dr. Rahul Parson, Hindi/Urdu 

2018-2019

  • The Power of the Word: Subversive and Censored 20th-Century Indian and Pakistani Literature (HIND 3811), Dr. Rahul Parson, Hindi/Urdu
  • Modern Korean Literature in English Translation (KREN 3841), Dr. Jae Won Chung, Korean

2017-2018

  • Introduction to Islam (RLST 2202), Dr. Aun Hasan Ali, Arabic
  • Chinese Literature and Popular Culture in Modern China (CHIN 3341), Dr. Andrew Stuckey, Chinese
  • Writing Lives: Diaries, Memoirs, Autobiographies, and Letters as Historical Sources in Japan and Japanese America, 1860-1950 (HIST 3718), Dr. Marcia Yonemoto, Japanese

CAS is pleased to announce that our own Executive Director, Danielle Rocheleau Salaz, was elected as Chair of the CLAC Consortium in fall 2024. Danielle also contributed a chapter to Cultures and Languages Across the Curriculum in Higher Education: Harnessing the Transformative Potentials of CLAC Across Disciplines, published by Routledge on November 18, 2022.

Past public lectures and faculty training workshops regarding CLAC:

CLAC: An Effective Approach to Globalizing the Curriculum (video) by Dr. JY Zhou, then CLAC Consortium Secretary/Treasurer; presented at the University of Colorado Boulder on September 28, 2017.

Engaging International Students through CLAC (video) by Dr. Suronda Gonzalez, then CLAC Consortium Chair; presented at the University of Colorado Boulder on April 10, 2018.

Expanding Inclusive Excellence and Intercultural Competency: Content Instruction through a Multicultural and Bilingual Lens (video), February 16, 2021. Presentations and discussion by faculty members who have added CLAC to their course offerings about benefits of CLAC programming.

Creating Culturally Inclusive Learning Environments: Incorporating Cultures and Languages Across the Curriculum (video), Monday, February 13, 2023.

We encourage faculty members with an interest in CLAC to contact Hannah Palustre, CLAC Coordinator, to discuss options for getting involved. You can also take a look at our Course Development Checklist and Resources to start thinking about how to CLAC your class.

Faculty Testimonials:

"Reading in Hindi closely gives [the CLAC students] a closeness to the text that is unique. I want to say that there's an investment in the text that is different because they're invested in how the text now gets interpreted. They almost become "politicized" by the translation. They are interested in how the information gets processed between languages. The confidence the [CLAC] students gained has also really empowered them in the parent class. It has changed the way they are reading in the main course … I actually think the students in the parent course are envious of the CLAC students." Dr. Rahul Bjorn Parson, Assistant Professor of Hindi Studies, Department of South and Southeast Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley (left CU in 2020)

"The CLAC focus has been on developing the students’ Japanese reading skills. They’re translating letters from the Japanese battle front, and I want them to bring what they’ve seen and learned to the main course. Because the CLAC students have done the extra work, they’re more engaged in the main class. They’re already good students, but they’re more tuned to sources and the nuances that are in them. They’re improving at reading and questioning the details of a translation. They’re also learning about the experience of translating, which is new to a lot of people." Dr. Marcia Yonemoto, Professor of History

“I was interested in the CLAC class because over the past few years as more and more students in China have been enrolling in my English-language classes, I’ve seen a need to have a space where they could use their own language in ways that they would understand would benefit the overall educational process.” Dr. Andrew Stuckey, Assistant Professor, Asian Languages and Civilizations (has since left CU)

Student Testimonials:

“I learned a lot about Arabic cultures worldwide. I particularly loved discussing current events and by consequence gaining a better understanding of Arab culture.”

“It was the first opportunity I have had to use [my native] Chinese in Colorado.”

“The CLAC course increased my confidence with Japanese and inspired me to seek out other materials in the language.”

For more information about CLAC: