50TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION

The UCSC Linguistics Department is almost as old as the campus itself. So as the campus celebrates its 50th Anniversary this year, it seemed like the right time to celebrate the history of the department and at the same time to look forward to its future. To that end, there was a gathering in the Stevenson Fireside Lounge on Saturday April 4th to do just that. Current faculty, graduate and undergraduate students, alumni, visitors, and friends gathered to hear talks by Judith Aissen, Maziar Toosarvandani, Amy Rose Deal , Grant McGuire, Matt Wagers and Junko Ito , introduced and coordinated by Pranav Anand. The program for the event is here and pictures (by Jim Clifford) can be viewed here. The themes of the event turned out to be the interweaving of methodologies (traditional and emerging), the relation between theoretical work and documentary work, and the importance of `giving back’ to the communities whose languages linguists mine for theoretical insight. The project was initiated and coordinated by Department Manager Ashley Hardisty, to whom warm thanks and congratulations are due.