Tufts Community Union Senate unanimously passed two resolutions. Submitted by Class of 2028 Senator Jesse Kitumba, the resolutions requested an expansion of language options for students during the Senate meeting on February 17.
S. 25-1 requests that the university expand its language proficiency testing to include alternative options for testing, such as the Language Testing International and the Global Seal of Biliteracy.
The resolution recommends these services because of their adherence to the standard set by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages. The Language Testing International and the Global Seal of Biliteracy offer 147 and 104 languages, respectively, for students to demonstrate proficiency, as opposed to the 40 offered by the UPenn Language Center, the current testing service used by Tufts.
This provides an opportunity for students who are fluent in one of the many languages not covered by the UPenn language exam to test out of Tufts’ language requirement — a key motivation for the resolution.
S. 25-2 calls on the university to expand language options in the ExCollege program to languages spoken by various immigrant communities in the Greater Boston area, including Haitian Creole, Hindi, Korean and Urdu. The resolution calls for gradual introduction of course offerings, so that class sizes and faculty attention are optimal, and for a continued reevaluation of Tufts’ language course offerings based on feedback and levels of demand from students.
Both resolutions request meetings with the Department of International Literary and Cultural Studies, Provost Caroline Genco, Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences Bárbara M. Brizuela and other university officials to collaborate with student representatives and “implement these changes in a timely manner.” TCU resolutions serve as formal requests from the student body to university administrators, but they are not binding.
For Kitumba, his personal experience and talking to friends in similar situations has inspired him to write the resolutions.
“When I was admitted, I checked the website [for] which languages there were, and certain languages were excluded and some languages were there,” Kitumba said. “Coming to Tufts and talking to a number of people, they’re facing the same issue where they haven’t tested out of a language because their language isn’t in Penn.”
Though he acknowledged that the resolutions will only impact a small percentage of students on campus, Kitumba believes they could lay the foundations of lasting change for years to come.
“Just the five, six percent of people [who] it does impact is something which is very impactful for me,” Kitumba said. “As long as it creates that change, where so many people who haven’t gotten that opportunity in the past will, in future years, get that opportunity, I’m very happy with that.”
As rewarding as the resolution process was, Kitumba said it did not come without its challenges. The biggest among them was finding programs that balance a wide variety of language offerings, are compatible with and meet the academic rigor of ACTFL standards and are within the price range of the UPenn program, as Tufts traditionally supports students with the costs of the test.
Another challenge Kitumba cited was the difficulty of finding proctors to run testing for less commonly spoken languages, which he said was no reason to stop the effort.
“I understand that sometimes [finding] proctors is hard,” he said. “It doesn’t really matter how hard it is to find the proctor, so long as I know that I can speak a certain language. It should be within the bounds of equity to ensure that I am able to test out, or at least be able to show my proficiency — even if I don’t get the scores to pass.”
Kitumba credited his fellow students, as well as TCU President Joel Omolade, Class of 2025, for providing critical support along the way.
“This was the first time I pushed for large-scale administrative change. The five minutes of talking through the resolution was really scary at first, but everyone was really happy with the resolution,” he said. “I think Joel was the one who convinced me one time in the Senate office … he had so much excitement for this resolution that it actually gave me the push to continue going with it.”
Omolade himself has long been a supporter of the resolution, noticing the same thing as Kitumba while speaking with Nigerian and Ethiopian friends.
“At a university that really does prioritize a lot of international development, it was a bit of a shock for them to be forced to learn a Eurocentric language when they speak these languages fluently at home,” he said.
Given Kitumba’s own enthusiasm for resolutions, Omolade said he was happy to see the newer senator work on his interests and passions as a senator.
“I couldn’t give Jesse the project if he wasn’t really interested in it as well,” Omolade said.
