According to Carleton’s language requirement policy, you may be eligible to petition for an exemption from (or substitution for) the language requirement if you have experienced inordinate difficulty in satisfying the language requirement.
Deadlines for Petitions
Petitions for exemption are evaluated by the Language Requirement Exemption Committee (LREC), which is a subcommittee of the Academic Standing Committee. LREC meets during the 1st and 7th weeks of each term. To ensure that all necessary materials are available to be considered at those committee meetings, you must submit your completed materials by 5:00pm on the Wednesday prior to those meetings. (That’s the Wednesday before classes start, or the Wednesday of the 6th week of the term.) Incomplete packets will not be considered until the next committee meeting.
Current or Future Enrollment in Language Courses
Students should not presume the outcome of any language exemption petition that they submit. Students who are enrolled in language when they submit their petition should stay enrolled in their current language course until they received a decision on their petition from the Language Requirement Exemption Committee. Students registering for courses for next term should not presuppose the outcome of their petition in choosing their future classes.
Before You Petition
If you are considering petitioning for language exemption, then you should first talk with your instructor (if you are currently enrolled in a language course). As the policy states, the LREC will need to see evidence of difficulty in language study, attested by your faculty, and also expects you to have made a good-faith effort, including engagement inside and outside the classroom, and making “appropriate use of all available relevant forms of support” for language learning.
If you are considering petitioning in a way that involves a disability, then, according to the language requirement policy, you must “have worked with the Office of Accessibility Resources (OAR) and have meaningfully engaged in an interactive process to explore potential reasonable accommodations (other than an exemption) for language learning.” You can find guidance on how to engage with OAR in this interactive process on the OAR website.
How to Petition
You can submit your exemption petition by completing this petition form.
In addition to a series of questions about your experiences in relevant classes, the petition form asks you to submit a brief statement discussing your difficulties in learning a language other than English. The Language Requirement Exemption Committee is interested in knowing what it was like for you to try to learn a language, what you did to try to learn the language, what worked, what didn’t, and what gave you difficulty. Useful statements detail not just that language learning was difficult for you, but how it was difficult for you. Students often ask how long their statement should be, and the honest answer is that it should be however long as it needs to be to convey your situation. Some students write a page, others much more; simply speaking, you should include whatever is needed. Remember, this isn’t a test and we aren’t going to grade you, but we are trying to understand the nature of your difficulty.
Your adviser will be asked to provide comments on your petition. For your information, the LREC will also be provided with a supplemental packet of information that includes your high school and Carleton transcripts, reports from your language instructor(s) at Carleton, and other relevant information provided from your student file. (You don’t need to do anything to acquire the other elements of this packet; we’ll take care of it.)
In your petition, you may also include supporting documents from others (e.g., tutors, other instructors, those who are familiar with your history of effort and attempts at language study). Whatever you upload will be shared with the LREC.
What Happens to Your Petition
The Language Requirement Exemption Committee will meet to consider your petition. Meetings are held twice a term, in weeks 1 & 7 (timed to coincide with the drop/add deadline and the late-drop deadline). The committee will either recommend or deny exemption. You will be notified by email of the committee’s decision after their meeting.
If your petition is denied, then you will have to complete the language requirement as usual.
If your petition is granted, the LREC will inform of you of what additional work, if any, you need to do to complete the language requirement. In most instances, you will be required to complete a specified number (up to four) of alternate courses, described below.
Language Replacement Courses
In most instances, when it grants a petition, the LREC requires that students successfully complete some number of alternate Carleton courses that must be taken in lieu of further language study. These designated, pre-approved courses, taught in English, ask students to study literature and/or culture within the framework of a language other than English. These courses must be completed with a C- or better (or an S).
You can find a list of replacement courses for this academic year here, or by searching for sections with the course tag “CX” in Workday.
For faculty: when you submit a new/revised course proposal, it asks you to flag any course that you believe ought to fall into this category by contacting the Associate Provost. If you teach any course that you believe ought to be so designated and is not (or vice versa), please get in touch.