Chinese, Hindi, and Japanese classes Offered at Rodgers Library

About 835 international students from the Middle East, South Asia, East Asia, and other regions around the world attend UA. From my experience, most of these students speak English reasonably well. But most library personnel and academic faculty in other departments are not familiar with the critical foreign languages spoken by these students. During normal operations, staff  talk to international students on a regular basis.  The conversation is fully in English.  Dialog in English is generally satisfactory for describing academic programs and services.  However, communication with international students would be better and improve if our staff had some ability to reciprocate by speaking to the students in their native languages. As a way to “build bridges” to our international students Rodgers Library is offering elementary conversational Chinese, Hindi and Japanese classes for faculty and staff in our science, engineering, and nursing  departments and also for faculty and staff in the University Libraries.  Native language speakers will teach the classes. The classes promise to be educational and enjoyable for all.