2019-20 has been the inaugural year of the Department of Linguistics, and the newly formed department is thriving and growing. We now have about 145 majors and 65 minors, and are one of the top three linguistics programs in the country, graduating more students with Linguistics majors than any other university of our size. We have just hired two new faculty who will start as Assistant Professors in the fall and these join our enthusiastic group of 13 faculty. So it’s an exciting time for WWU Linguistics, but as we launch our new department, your support is needed more than ever.
From left, Dr. Jordan Sandoval, Dr. Kristin Denham, Dr. Emily Curtis, student Calli Hilvitz, and student Abi Freitag. Hilvitz and Freitag were able to attend the 2020 Linguistics Society of America Annual Meeting in New Orleans thanks to the support of Western’s College of Humanities and Social Sciences, the AS Student Enhancement Fund, and our generous donors.
“Being able to attend the LSA conference in New Orleans was a wonderful and educating experience. While almost no other undergraduates get the chance to attend this conference, it was an amazing experience and peek into the professional and academic world that I will be immersed in shortly after graduation. I walked away from the conference with connections to professors and other students from all over the world, and an assurance that I was pursuing the field that was right for me.”
-Calli Hilvitz
Our alumni are living, working, and contributing in exciting and important ways to their communities all over the world. The Department of Linguistics leads students not only to find interesting and engaging careers but also to give back to their communities in important ways. They are teaching, creating, writing, analyzing, and serving in a vast array of jobs and civic engagement.
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Samantha Wray, '08, B.A., English and linguistics, continued to pursue an academic career in linguistics, cognitive science, and Arabic, completing a Linguistics Ph.D. at the University of Arizona, and working and studying in the Arab world, including in Yemen, Jordan, Morocco, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. She is currently a member of the New York University Abu Dhabi Neuroscience of Language Lab, where she researches the neural underpinnings of language processing. She will join Dartmouth College as a Visiting Professor in the Linguistics Program in 2020. Wray credits the incredible educators of WWU Linguistics for fostering her passion for language research. |
| After graduating from Western, Carlos Nye, ‘02, B.A., Spanish and linguistics, went on to complete his master’s degrees in Spanish Linguistics and Communication Disorders. He taught college-level Spanish and worked as a speech-language pathologist before later pursuing his Ph.D. at The University of Texas at Austin. His research interest focuses on facilitating generalization of skills across languages in Spanish-English bilingual children with speech sound disorders. He currently works as an Assistant Professor at the University of New Mexico’s Speech & Hearing Sciences Department where he continues to teach and research how to assess and treat communication disorders in culturally and linguistically diverse populations. |  |
Your Impact
Your financial support can help the new Linguistics Department offer scholarships and awards to our outstanding and deserving students. This year our students attended and presented at conferences in Tempe, Arizona; New Orleans, Louisiana, and Seattle. We would like to be able to fully fund this travel and the costs associated with attending academic conferences and events outside of Western. This opportunity makes all the difference as our students’ prepare to launch their careers.
You can choose to make a gift in honor of your favorite faculty member or another loved one who has supported you through your educational journey. We appreciate your support as WWU Linguistics continues to grow and receive national attention for the quality graduates we are known for.
