Category: Announcements

The news of Luis Vicente‘s recent death has left the linguistics community at UCSC deeply saddened. Luis was an excellent linguist who made many important contributions to the field and he was a warm and loyal friend to many of us here. He was born in Bilbao in the Basque Country of Spain in 1979 and completed the PhD in Leiden in 2007, under the direction of Lisa Cheng. He spent 2008 in the Linguistics Department at UCSC as a postdoctoral researcher and formed in the course of that twelve months many lasting friendships and collaborations. It was here that he became an expert on ellipsis (particularly sluicing) and it was in the area of ellipsis that he was to make some of his many important contributions, often in collaboration with alumnus Matt Barros who was completing his MA at Santa Cruz in 2008. Luis seemed to be always smiling and always in the Stevenson coffee-shop and it was there that he met Amanda Shuman, a PhD student in history at the time completing a dissertation on contemporary China. It was Amanda who introduced Luis to the joys of trail running and they later made a family and professional life together in Europe — Amanda at the University of Freiburg, Luis at the University of Potsdam — with their daughter Emma. Luis was a person who faced life and work, and the challenges of living with brain cancer, with intelligence, humor, courage, commitment and warmth. He is sorely missed — as a linguist and as a friend.

Eligible undergraduate students are invited to apply for The David A. Kadish Humanities Scholarship Award. The application deadline is March 1. Additional details are provided below, and the application is available here (note that you should be logged into your ucsc.edu Google account to use this form).

David Kadish (History, ‘73) has been giving back to UC Santa Cruz for many years. Due to his close personal relationship with John Dizikes, he helped establish as a lead donor both the John Dizikes Endowment in Music in 2000 and the Dizikes Teaching Award in 2012, and has also helped solicit others for gifts to the Dizikes Teaching Award. David also gave generously to the Endowment for First Year Honors Program in Cowell.

Through this gift David intends to offer financial support to a deserving student with a strong interest in the study of humanities.

An award amount of $1,000 and will be awarded at the outset of Spring quarter.

Eligible applicants are UC Santa Cruz undergraduate students with financial need who displays a strong interest in the study of the humanities. Additionally, you must be a registered student in good standing during the Spring 2018 quarter and declared in one of the following majors: Applied Linguistics and Multilingualism, Classical Studies Critical Race and Ethnic Studies, Feminist Studies, German Studies, History, Italian Studies, Jewish Studies, Language Studies, Linguistics, Literature, Philosophy, or Spanish Studies.

We welcome a new research visitor to the department this quarter. Anastasiia (Ana) Ionova is a doctoral student in Linguistics at Leiden University in the Netherlands, where she works with Anikó Lipták and Lisa Cheng on the project Ellipsis Licensing Beyond Syntax. Ana will be a visiting graduate student at the LRC for the Winter Quarter and she hopes to continue work on her project examining second position clitics in Serbo-Croatian and their interaction with ellipsis.

As we mentioned in the January 15 volume of WHASC, the February 5th deadline for the Dizikes Award nominations is fast approaching. The call is repeated below:

Since 2002, the Dizikes Award has been given each year to a faculty member in the Humanities Division for their commitment and effectiveness in transformative teaching and effective mentoring of both undergraduate and graduate students. In addition to receiving the award, recipients have the honor of selecting an undergraduate student to receive a scholarship in their name. Past recipients include Pranav Anand in 2016, Donka Farkas in 2013, Jorge Hankamer in 2011, and Jaye Padgett in 2006. Current students and recent alumni are now invited to nominate faculty for the 2018 award. According to the call, “Nominations should address the faculty member’s ability to arouse curiosity in students, to encourage high standards, and to stimulate students to original and rigorous work though guidance and mentoring. Other criteria include creating an inclusive learning environment that is open and encouraging to all students, relating the subject to other fields of knowledge and making the learning relevant to experience outside the academy.” Nominations must include a single-page form, available here, along with a one-page narrative. Nominations should be submitted to the the Linguistics Undergraduate Coordinator Matthew MacLeod by Monday February 5th, 2018. If you are considering a nomination, you are encouraged to consult with Matthew for guidance.

Since 2002, the Dizikes Award has been given each year to a faculty member in the Humanities Division for their commitment and effectiveness in transformative teaching and effective mentoring of both undergraduate and graduate students. In addition to receiving the award, recipients have the honor of selecting an undergraduate student to receive a scholarship in their name. Past recipients include Pranav Anand in 2016, Donka Farkas in 2013, Jorge Hankamer in 2011, and Jaye Padgett in 2006. Current students and recent alumni are now invited to nominate faculty for the 2018 award. According to the call, “Nominations should address the faculty member’s ability to arouse curiosity in students, to encourage high standards, and to stimulate students to original and rigorous work though guidance and mentoring. Other criteria include creating an inclusive learning environment that is open and encouraging to all students, relating the subject to other fields of knowledge and making the learning relevant to experience outside the academy.” Nominations must include a single-page form, available here, along with a one-page narrative. Nominations should be submitted to the the Linguistics Undergraduate Coordinator Matthew MacLeod by Monday February 5th, 2018. If you are considering a nomination, you are encouraged to consult with Matthew for guidance.