Indiana University’s Summer Language Workshop is proud to host the 2026 Baltic Studies Summer Institute (BALSSI), a cooperative project of the Baltic Languages Consortium and the Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies, offering intensive Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian language courses.
BALSSI was founded in 1994 and is supported by a consortium of American universities: Indiana University, Stanford University, University of California-Berkeley, University of Illinois, University of Pittsburgh, University of Texas, University of Washington, and University of Wisconsin-Madison. BALSSI is held in different universities in different years. Indiana University hosted in 1998 –1999, 2005 – 2006, and 2016 – 2024.
At Indiana University, BALSSI is held in conjunction with the Language Workshop's summer courses and benefits from the Workshop's long experience as a leader in intensive summer language instruction and programming.
The Workshop has been offering intensive language training at the Bloomington campus of Indiana University since 1950. Drawing on the resources of Indiana University’s language and area studies specialists and employing highly qualified and experienced faculty from other universities in the US and abroad, the Language Workshop has developed and maintained a national program of the highest quality. The Workshop’s curriculum emphasizes communicative classrooms focused on the student and on development of level-appropriate proficiency in reading, writing, speaking, listening, grammar, and culture. A full range of cultural and linguistic extracurricular activities complement classroom instruction for every language.
Students complete the equivalent of one year of academic instruction in the program and earn 6-8 credits, which can be transferred to other institutions.