The Oldenborg Center for Modern Languages and International Relations was founded to provide students with a living experience of language immersion and international education. Each year, around 130 students choose to live in language sections dedicated to programs focused on one of the six languages taught at Pomona College: Chinese, French, German, Japanese, Russian, and Spanish.
The Oldenborg Center sponsors a wide variety of curricular and co-curricular activities, some of which are open to the entire college community. For example, students, staff and faculty from across the Claremont Consortium attend the daily language lunch tables and the Oldenborg Luncheon Colloquium (OLC). Students can enroll in conversation courses, taught by the Language Residents, in all six of the Pomona-taught languages.
Language Residents are university graduates from abroad who are native speakers of either Chinese (Mandarin), French, German, Japanese, Russian, or Spanish. Each year, Oldenborg recruits, hires, and trains these young professionals to come to Pomona College to mentor and instruct students in the target language via the various structured opportunities outlined above. Given these opportunities for teaching, learning, and sharing, it is no surprise that the Language Resident Program in many ways constitutes the heart of Oldenborg.
The Oldenborg Center administers a number of programs in its efforts to promote the teaching and learning of foreign languages and international studies on campus such as The Foreign Language Resource Center in Mason Hall, the Language Partner Program (advanced peer tutoring), the College Exchange Visitor Program (J-visa), and the Oldenborg International Research and Travel Grant. For more information, please e-mail the Interim Director of The Oldenborg Center Senem Bakar.
If you would like to hear about Oldenborg events, please join our mailing list at Friends of Oldenborg, or write us at Oldenborg@pomona.edu.
Access on E. Bonita Ave., across from Wig Hall