Lansing Community College (LCC) is expanding its language classes, specifically Spanish, in order to keep up with the increasing number of bilingual industries in the U.S.
LCC’s first venture into this market is a Spanish for business class. The class launches in the fall and if it’s successful, LCC will consider adding other career-
specific classes, such as Spanish for health care or agriculture.
“As I see it, we have a lot going on here at LCC in terms of business,” says LCC professor Keith Phillips. “Our neighbors to the east [at Michigan State University] have a bunch going on in terms of business, agriculture and international law, so students are studying these types of things.”
Phillips notes that Spanish is particularly desired because 45 million people of Hispanic origin live in the United States.
“Not all of those people are speakers of Spanish or writers of Spanish, but there’s some exposure there, culturally at least,” Phillips says.
Phillips says a 2007 study conducted by LCC suggested the majority of respondents said they’d be most interested in Spanish for business. Spanish for health care may be rolled out next fall.
Source: Keith Phillips, LCC
Ivy Hughes, development news editor, can be reached here.
All Photographs © Dave Trumpie
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