The Five College Mentored Language Program is sponsored jointly by the Five Colleges: Amherst, Hampshire, Mount Holyoke, and Smith Colleges and the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. The administrative home of the program is the Five College Center for World Languages (FCCWL), which is located at Amherst College, at 79 S. Pleasant St. in downtown Amherst (directions). FCCWL's operations and staff are supported equally by each of the five institutions. The courses offered by FCCWL are listed at the University and have been approved for Five College interchange credit by each of the other four campuses. FCCWL's staff are Five Colleges, Incorporated employees.
The role of FCCWL is to support study of the Less-Commonly Taught Languages (commonly abbreviated as LCTLs) by Five College students. FCCWL works only with languages not represented in traditional classroom language offerings at the colleges. The one exception is Arabic for which the Mentored Language Program offers supplementary courses in spoken and colloquial Arabic. In addition to offering courses, FCCWL also engages in numerous course and materials development projects funded by government and private foundation grants.
Sessions for Mentored Language Program courses meet on all five campuses. We try to vary the schedule each semester so that beginning level courses are spread among the campuses. Sessions meet in regular classrooms or in special satellite offices established on some of the campuses: