This year, your financial support will have wide-ranging effects. We have some important new initiatives and opportunities for our students, and your financial gifts are critical to making these happen. Last year, we offered our first ever post-graduate fellowship. Jess Costanza, the 2020-21 Outstanding Graduate in Linguistics, was awarded this fellowship to continue work on the podcast she developed as a student at Western, The Podling. Your gift will help fund another fellowship this year. We also plan to offer a brand new Research Experience for students and recent graduates, which will provide financial support for a student to conduct research with our faculty. Students will work with Dr. McNeel Jantzen in the Language and Neural Systems Lab, with Dr. Jordan Sandoval in the Sounds and Letters in Phonetics and Phonology (SLIPP) lab, with Dr. Virginia Dawson, on her work with Tiwa in India, with Dr. Sheryl Bernardo-Hinesley, on her work on Chabacano, a language of the Phillipines, among other projects emerging from our faculty collaborations with students.

Jess Costanza, recipient of the 2021-2022 Linguistics Post-graduate Fellowship

"My continued work on The Podling has provided me the very fortunate opportunity of being compensated for what began as — and what remains — a project rooted in exploratory learning. I am supported in maintaining and strengthening the skills I established while still a student at Western, and before me are a breadth of open doors. By having my work funded, I am enabled to apply my expertise in my current job and beyond, and I am empowered to create in my own life and personal connections just for the joy of creating."

Navor Tercero, recipient of the 2021-2022 Linguistics Student Scholarship

"Receiving the Linguistics Students Scholarship was, in part, what enabled me to return to school full time, making my education my full-time occupation for the first time in three years. Due to that, I found myself in a place where I was able to finish my degree sooner than I had expected. Being awarded this scholarship represented a vote of confidence which this institution had in me and is something that I have tried to honor in all my work ever since."