About Us

Who We Are:

The Language Expansion Program is a student-run program of the David M. Einhorn Center for Community Engagement. We hold weekly Language Corners to provide a casual and encouraging environment for students to gather and practice their target languages. Some common ones include Spanish, Japanese, and French. See FAQs for more information!

Our Mission:

The mission of the Language Expansion Program is to promote language learning and practice, and to promote linguistic and cross-cultural exchange throughout the Cornell community.

Present Day

Now, LEP focuses on promoting language learning and practice through weekly Language Corners, as well as hosting larger linguistic and cultural events throughout the semester. LEP continues its close partnership with TIP.

2016 - LEP Renamed

In honor of the program's 25th anniversary, the name was officially reverted back to Language Expansion Program due to the discontinued use of pairing practices.

1999 - TIP and LEP

In 1999, Fatema Sumar (an LEP alumna and former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs) recognized the need for emergency translation services during a fire in the Ithaca Commons. As a result, she founded the Translator-Interpreter Program (TIP) as an offshoot of the Language Expansion Program to better focus on translation and interpretation. LEP became the Language Pairing Program (LPP), which dealt solely with language pairing duties. LPP and TIP remained sister programs, and LPP expanded the outreach program into its own board, Families with Children of Culture (FCC).

1991 - Founding

The Language Expansion Program was founded in 1991 with the goal of training bilingual individuals to translate and/or interpret for Ithaca-area residents in emergency situations, working in conjunction with the American Red Cross. It also was intended to establish language tutoring pairs, within and around the Cornell community to facilitate linguistic and cultural exchange.

Language Expansion Program

Join us and attend our weekly language corners!

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THIS ORGANIZATION IS A REGISTERED STUDENT ORGANIZATION OF CORNELL UNIVERSITY.