History
Georgia Tech-Lorraine was established as Georgia Institute of Technology's first international campus in 1990. Initially offering a graduate program in electrical and computer engineering, GTL has expanded its graduate program to include degree programs in mechanical engineering and computer science. Instruction is in English and admissions are through Georgia Tech's home campus in Atlanta, Georgia. GTL subsequently expanded its academic programs to include undergraduate program in the fall, spring and summer. As of 2012, over 3,000 undergraduate and graduate students have studied at GTL.
In 2010, officials from the Lorraine region of France and the Georgia Institute of Technology signed a letter of intent to establish the Lafayette Institute, a $30 million facility that will facilitate the research, development, and commercialization of innovations in optoelectronics. Construction of the facility, a 20,000 square feet (1,900 m2) building, located on the Georgia Tech Lorraine campus, is scheduled to start in 2012 and open at the end of 2013.
Georgia Tech Lorraine was subject to a much-publicized lawsuit around 1996 pertaining to the language used in advertisements, over what is known in France as Toubon Law. Soon after the Toubon Law came into force, two French lobbying groups, the Association pour la Défense de la Langue Française and the L'Avenir de la Langue Française, filed a complaint against Georgia Tech Lorraine. At the time of the complaint, all classes at the school were conducted in English, and all course descriptions on its website were only in English. The complaint invoked the Toubon Law to demand that the school's web be in French because the web site was effectively a commercial advertisement for the school's courses. Although the case was dismissed by the court on a legal technicality, and the lobbying groups chose to drop the matter, Georgia Tech Lorraine was moved to offer its French website in the French language in addition to English, although classes continued to be in English only.
Read more about this topic: Georgia Tech Lorraine