2001 AWSS Outstanding Achievement Award

[Loren A. Billings]

Sibelan Forrester wrote a very fitting tribute to Professor Olga T. 
Yokoyama on the occasion of the latter being awarded the Outstanding
Achievement Award by the Association for Women in Slavic Studies. I'd
like to add a few details of my own to bolster this accolade:

First, I follow up on a one point in the aforementioned tribute:

> We would like draw special attention to her work in Gender studies:
> Dr. Yokoyama pioneered gender studies at Harvard University with a
> course for graduate students [...]

As a student in that inaugural course (in the fall of 1993, when I 
was a visiting grad student), I'm very glad to hear of this overdue
recognition. One comment she made during our last class session sort
of confused me: _Pervyj blin komom_ (literally 'The first pancake
ends up as a blob'), meaning that she didn't think that this course
was as good as it should have been. Although I did not intend at the 
time to be a specialist in gender linguistics, my own impression was 
that this was put together well. She combined studies from other 
languages with both real transcriptions and even a analysis of a 
literary text. I even found a rare example of the preposition _s_ 
plus a multi-word accusative-case complement, which I later used in 
my dissertation (which was not an gender linguistics):

  Ka^zdyj koroty^ska byl rostom s nebol'^soj ogurec. [Nosov 1987:3]
  'Each munchkin was about the height of a small cucumber.'

I might also add that Olga Yokoyama was the first (and perhaps the 
only) junior faculty member to earn tenure at Harvard's Slavic 
Department. Indeed, only about one in a hundred are tenured from 
within at that university. (Please correct me if any details are 
imprecise.) In addition, during much of the time she was at Harvard, 
she encountered a cold shoulder from many of her colleagues; still,
she was prolific in her research. 

Finally, on a personal note, I know Olga to be a warm, patient, 
and hospitable person. Many (but certainly not all) professors at
the more prestigious Ph.D. programs in Slavic linguistics have had 
a penchant for publicly degrading their grad students. It is not my 
intention here to point fingers. Instead I wish to recognize that 
Olga is one scholar determined to break this cycle of abuse. Perhaps
for this reason her advisees stick up for their _Doktormutter_ with
such enthusiasm. It's easy to start griping about one's students'
from from the lectern, even to single out a student in front of the
class for getting something wrong. I only hope that Olga's example
will keep me from crossing the line. Ironically, one other thing not 
mentioned in Professor Forrester's posting was that Dr. Yokoyama had
trained as a dentist in Japan before pursuing Slavic linguistics. I
can't help thinking that the combination of a prior profession known
for inflicting pain and an apprenticeship of observation here in 
East Asia would predispose her to be stern if not cruel; not Olga.

In short, I am very pleased to learn of Professor Yokoyama's 
recognition. Hear, hear!

REFERENCE:

Nosov, Nikolaj N. (1987)  _Priklju^cenija Neznajki i ego druzej.
  Roman-skazka dlja mlad^sego ^skol´nogo vozrasta._  Kiev: Veselka.

-----------------------------------------------------
Loren A. Billings, Ph.D.; e-mail <billings at pu.edu.tw>
Dept. of English Language, Literature and Linguistics
Providence University, 200 Chung Chi Road, Shalu Town
Taichung Hsien/County, Taiwan 43301 Republic of China
Telephone: +886-4-2632-8001 ext. 2221 or (dept.) 2021
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