The Shared Course Initiative (SCI) is a collaborative agreement between Columbia, Cornell, and Yale Universities to share instruction in the less commonly taught languages (LCTLs) using high-definition videoconferencing. Participation in the SCI allows Cornell to offer up to 20 languages through a shared model in which we function as both a sending and receiving institution. For example, we share our Bengali, Burmese, Indonesian, Khmer, Nepali, Sinhala, and Yoruba classes with Columbia and Yale and receive classes in Czech, Dutch, Tibetan, Wolof, and many more.
SCI classes may be taken for credit and used to count toward Cornell’s language requirement. They are taught live via videoconferencing by an instructor at the sending institution, while students at the receiving institution attend a regular class in a classroom outfitted with the same videoconferencing technology. Languages in this program include Bengali, Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian (BCS), Burmese, Czech, Dutch, Finnish, Hungarian, Indonesian, Khmer, Nepali, Punjabi, Sinhala, Swedish, Tamil, Classical and Modern Tibetan, Ukrainian, Wolof, Yoruba, and Zulu. Cornell students can sign up for any of these courses through regular student center registration. The courses are offered at the Language Resource Center in Stimson Hall in specially equipped rooms. The teacher and the other classmates appear on a large live screen.