Dartmouth College
Office of the Registrar
6014 McNutt Hall
Hanover, NH 03755-3541
The Arts & Science faculty have approved an expanded language requirement, effective for the class of 2026 and beyond. Students in the class of 2025 and earlier continue to follow the current requirement, as outlined in the ORC/Catalog.
Beginning with the entering class of 2026 and beyond, all students must satisfy the Language Requirement with coursework taken at Dartmouth, as follows:
See a summary of new requirements chart.
Language Requirement for Proficient Speakers (LRP) courses
These are courses that build metalinguistic awareness and/or cross-linguistic awareness in at least one of the following areas: (a) the widely different structural features through which meaning is conveyed, (b) the irreducible differences between languages, and/or (c) the ways that linguistic diversity adds depth, insight, and value to the human experience.
A course that analyzes the structure of a single language at a deep level, thinking in a theoretical way about how the structures of that language manage to convey meaning, would seem to qualify. Courses that do not look as deeply at the structural features of any one language, but that do look at difficulties and opportunities arising from differences between multiple languages, would also seem to qualify. Courses that study cultural difference but do not engage specifically with linguistic difference and/or diversity would presumably not qualify.
Departments/programs may request the LRP designation through the DCARS system. Courses are reviewed by the Committee on Instruction (COI) for qualification as a LRP course. As with other general education requirements, “Students must follow the decision that has been made by the COI; there is no appeal of this decision, nor may students petition (then or later) to have a course count for them in a category other than the one selected by the department or program and approved by the COI. In cases where the category of a course has been changed, the category in effect for the term in which the course was taken will be used.”