What It Really Takes to Build a Bilingual College Program
Lessons from our NSF project—and why one-size-fits-all solutions won’t work
When Dr. Rosemary Barberet began teaching criminology in Spanish, it sparked interest—and questions. Could we create a bilingual college program, not just a single course?
That’s the question behind a project we’re developing with support from the National Science Foundation (check it out here and here). Over the past year, we’ve been collecting data from students and administrators at two institutions: Hostos Community College (with Dr. Sarah Hoiland leading the charge) and my own campus, John Jay College (with Dr. Rosemary Barberet at the helm—and me supporting the work on the ground).
The bilingual populations at each school are very different. At the community college, most students learned English as adults and speak Spanish as their dominant language. At my college, most are heritage speakers: they grew up with both languages, often speaking Spanish at home and English at school.
What we’re learning so far? Just collecting the data looks different at each institution. If we want a bilingual program to work, we need student involvement—and we can’t assume what works in one place will work in another.
We’re also learning that we don’t know nearly enough:
What is our students’ actual level of Spanish proficiency?
Are they interested in bilingual education?
What are their beliefs about their own bilingualism?
How many faculty are able—and willing—to teach in Spanish?
Would the administration support a full bilingual major?
These questions are foundational, and until now, largely unasked.
And yet, we’ve been surprised by how many people support the idea once they understand it. One of the most vocal champions on our advisory board is the chair of our science department. At first, we thought she might be skeptical—after all, Spanish may not help much in a U.S. lab. But her reaction was the opposite. She immediately talked about the value of presenting at international conferences and collaborating with researchers in Latin America. Why? She’s Canadian, and she grew up in a society that values both French and English.
The same goes for our Dean of Academic Affairs. His connection? His Dominican wife.
When a society values multilingualism, these programs make sense. They feel normal. But in the U.S., especially for students who’ve been told “speak English, this is America,” it takes a village to build that kind of environment.
The benefits of bilingualism—academic, cognitive, professional—are well documented. But in a society that doesn’t recognize those benefits, you only really understand them if you’ve lived them.
Ironically, the ones building this program are three white professors. I’m the only Spanish native speaker—and I’m from Europe. None of us has faced discrimination for our bilingualism. Maybe that’s why we’ve felt empowered to act.
But our goal is to create something that does empower. Not just one class, not just one professor—but a program that recognizes and builds on the strengths our students already bring with them.