On April 13, 2018, Miao-fen Tseng, the Director of the Institute of World Languages and Associate Professor of Chinese, received an award from Jefferson Trust to launch Language Forward Initiative in fall 2018. The initiative creates real-time immersive online programs that aim to expand opportunities for UVA students to interact with native speakers abroad. Building on connections forged by 12 UVA language faculty, students in 10 languages across 7 language departments will partner with native speakers abroad for synchronous online communication in 2018-19. Through cutting-edge online immersion, students will develop the linguistic proficiency and cultural fluency necessary for global leadership and aspire to be global leaders. The 10 languages include Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Modern Hebrew, Russian, and Swahili.