Passaic Today

A team of faculty from Montclair State University has been selected as one of 19 groups nationwide to receive the inaugural "Pathways Step Grant." This initiative, launched by the Modern Language Association (MLA), is funded by the Mellon Foundation and is part of the MLA's new Pathways: Recruitment, Retention, and Career Readiness initiative.

The grants provide up to $10,000 to support faculty members in developing new structures, programs, and resources that enhance the recruitment, retention, and career readiness of undergraduate students. The initiative particularly targets students of color, first-generation college students, and Pell Grant recipients.

The Montclair team is led by Professor of World Languages and Cultures Elizabeth Emery. Other faculty members include Kathleen Loysen, Wing Shan Ho, Thomas Herold, Enza Antenos, and Pascale LaFountain. The grant will be used to develop a cocurricular career resources hub designed to help define career pathways for students studying modern languages.

Recipients of the Pathways Step Grants will present their projects at the 2025 MLA Annual Convention scheduled for January 2025.

"We are honored and delighted to have been selected for an MLA Pathways grant," says Emery. "The funding will support the construction of new resources like a language careers calculator to help students understand how best to hone and leverage their language skills in the workplace. We are particularly excited to improve the career prospects of multilingual students in New Jersey—a state where more than 200 languages and dialects are spoken."

Montclair offers a diverse range of programs spanning 13 languages—Arabic, ASL, Chinese, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latin, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish. In addition to language study, students focus on various cultural aspects such as business practices, journalism technology healthcare literature cinema music art cuisine etc., related to countries where these languages are spoken. Students have the option to major, minor, or even double-major in individual languages, translation studies, or Montclair’s bachelor’s in Language, Business and Culture program.

Peter Kingstone, Dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, says, "Our World Languages and Cultures faculty are a dynamic and talented group who care deeply about the well-being and future success of our students. This project is a critical part of our effort to help students choose to study languages and see its value in the workplace."