Baptist University speaks the right language
It has shown some backbone by sticking to its guns to require all undergraduates pass a Mandarin test or take a mandatory course in the language
When I was at a liberal American arts college during the 1980s, all students had to pass two language tests to graduate: one in Attic or ancient Greek and one in French.
If you want to talk about practicality, our language curriculum was useless. No one speaks Attic Greek today, not even the Greeks themselves. But we were required to read some Plato and others in the original. The French requirement was more practical.
With few exceptions, most of us have forgotten whatever reading and translation skills we learned back then. But not a single one of us ever regrets the experience of learning a new language. We were young, so we had the mental agility to do something so challenging.