Tompkins Cortland Community College (TC3), in partnership with Cornell, will provide English language instruction this academic year for Cornell international students who need to improve their English.

TC3's Global ESOL program will enhance students' skills in speaking, reading and writing English, as well as help them better understand American culture to bolster their success in the university environment.

"The program's extensive experience in ESL instruction will greatly benefit our students," said Cornell Vice Provost for International Relations Alice Pell, who led a task force that investigated several internal and external options for filling the gap that resulted when the university's English for Academic Purposes program was terminated.

"Almost 40 percent of the graduate students at Cornell come to us from other countries and, as many of them are not first-language speakers of English, we want to be sure that they will have the language skills they need to succeed both academically and professionally," said Ellen Gainor, associate dean of Cornell's Graduate School, who was instrumental in guiding the partnership agreement.

TC3 will supervise all hiring and training of instructors for the program at Cornell, and will develop or select instructional content, with extensive input from Cornell on student needs. There will be no additional cost to Cornell students to take part in the program, and all the instruction will take place on Cornell's campus.

"We expect to learn as much from the Cornell community as Cornell's students will learn from us," said Maureen Edmonds, TC3's Global ESOL coordinator. "Student success is our ultimate goal, and the opportunity to facilitate this in such a rich academic environment as Cornell's is quite valuable to TC3, both academically and professionally."