[Edling] Share Your Memories of Bernard Spolsky

Wed Nov 9 19:34:59 UTC 2022

Dear colleagues,

We are deeply saddened by the passing of Prof. Bernard Spolsky. We had met
him many years ago as doctoral candidates when he gave a guest lecture at
Ofelia Garcia’s classroom at Teachers College, NY. One of his last
contributions has been to our co-edited collective volume honoring the work
of Ofelia Garcia, titled Remaking Multilingualism: A Translanguaging
Approach <https://www.multilingual-matters.com/page/detail/?K=9781800410831>
.

Prof. Spolsky was a delight to work with. He not only agreed to write our
Foreword right away, but also wrote his piece quickly and meticulously.
Through his eyes, we saw our doctoral mentor Ofelia Garcia’s versatility
and her work in better depth. This was the beauty of working with Prof.
Spolsky. He did not hesitate to honor his friend and colleague and happily
wrote his tribute. We have been lucky to work with him and will always
remember him with awe and respect. Thanks for creating this thread in honor
of Prof. Spolsky. We extend our condolences to the entire linguistic
community.

Best regards,

Bahar Otcu-Grillman and Maryam Borjian

On Wed, Nov 9, 2022, 7:53 AM Francis M. Hult via Edling <
edling at lists.mail.umbc.edu> wrote:

> It has taken me a long while to process Bernard's passing, the loss of a
> true friend and cherished mentor as well as visionary leader in multiple
> fields of study.  The past few years have been a period of profound
> turmoil, and death and disease have become frequent yet unwelcome friends,
> both globally and in my life personally.  In this ecology of suffering,
> Bernard's death hit me especially hard, and I will notice his absence the
> rest of my days.  He has had an immeasurable influence on my scholarly work
> and my career.  I knew him in two ways: as Spolsky, the scholar/author and
> as Bernard, the friend/mentor.
>
> I first encountered him before I met him, having read his early work
> establishing the field of educational linguistics in courses I took with
> another dear friend and mentor, Nancy Hornberger.  I was a new doctoral
> student in Penn's Educational Linguistics PhD program.  In his 1978 book,
> Spolsky noted that educational linguistics can be defined by shared
> interests and action: what we who have an affinity for language in
> education *do*.  That is what drew me to Penn's program where I found
> many like-minded peers and professors.  The more I read Spolsky's work, and
> that of others who were theorizing educational linguistics as a field,
> though, I became intensely interested in exploring the nature of
> educational linguistics, what distinguishes it from applied linguistics,
> what relationships it has with linguistics proper and other fields of
> language study or other disciplines, what possibilities it affords for
> theory-practice relationships, and how it can facilitate socially
> responsible pedagogy and policies.  My curiosity led me deeper into the
> vast body of Spolsky's work, reading everything I could find where he had
> any pearls of wisdom to offer about the nature of educational linguistics.
>
> In the early 2000s, probably some time in 2002 or spring 2003, Spolsky
> came to visit Penn, and I had my first opportunity to meet and talk with
> him one-on-one.  I was in awe at the time that the founder of my field was
> sitting across the table from me.  As is his way, he spoke to me as a
> colleague.  It was an inspiring conversation where he left me feeling like
> I, too, could have an impact on the field.  The theme of educational
> linguistics as an intellectual space for those with like-minded interests
> in language in education continued in that conversation.  At the time,
> Harold Schiffman had recently founded the Language Policy
> <https://clpp.umbc.edu/listserv/> e-mail list as part of the also newly
> minted Consortium for Language Policy and Planning.  When talking with
> Spolsky, I asked him if he thought that educational linguistics could use a
> similar list.  Wouldn't that be a good way to bring like-minded people
> together from across the world to engage with educational linguistics?  He
> enthusiastically said, "do it!"  Shortly thereafter, I got busy learning
> how to create a list with advice from Hal Schiffman and help from
> tech-savvy peer Shannon Sauro (it took a bit of Unix knowledge back then)
> and set up the Educational Linguistics List
> <https://lists.mail.umbc.edu/mailman/listinfo/edling>.  To make it
> viable, I needed some important people on the list.  I e-mailed Spolsky,
> letting him know about my progress, and he kindly offered to invite people
> he knew to join.  It was because of his encouragement and support that the
> Educational Linguistics list came to be and has been going strong for
> nearly 20 years.
>
> Over the ensuing months, the two of us continued e-mail correspondence
> about educational linguistics and soon became e-mail friends, and Bernard
> emerged as a mentor and early champion of my work and career.  Around this
> time (2002), he founded the new journal *Language Policy*.  He encouraged
> me to rework an advanced seminar paper for submission to the journal, which
> I did.  When the reviewer feedback came back 'revise and resubmit', Bernard
> took the time to offer thorough and strategic feedback on how I could
> sharpen the paper.  It was such kindness for him to invest his time in
> nurturing a junior scholar when he was no doubt exceedingly busy with
> journal management and his own prolific writing.  He was always giving in
> that way.  Thanks to his guidance, I published my first single-authored journal
> article
> <https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/B:LPOL.0000036182.40797.23>.
>
> A little while later, Bernard offered me another opportunity that had a
> major impact on my intellectual development and career.  He was planning to
> put together a Handbook of Educational Linguistics
> <https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/book/10.1002/9780470694138> for the
> then Blackwell Handbooks in Linguistics series, and he invited me to join
> him as a co-editor.  I was both honored and surprised as I was still a
> couple of years away from finishing my PhD at the time.  And conventional
> wisdom would say that a doctoral student should not waste their time
> editing a handbook.  Bernard assured me that conventional wisdom was wrong
> in this case, and that it would be good for me (and Nancy as my
> dissertation chair thankfully agreed with him).  He also told me I would be
> a 50%-50% partner in every way, not a glorified assistant who gets his name
> on the book as a reward.  We got to work on the book.  I could not believe
> my fortune.  There I was having regular discussions with the founder of the
> field about how to frame it and shape its future directions.  Together, we
> wrote feedback and made suggestions to some of the most important scholars
> in the field.  I learned so much from him through this collaboration, both
> intellectually through the scholarly work and practically through the
> editorial administration--wisdom that has stayed with me over the years.
> At his passing, we had been working on the second edition of the
> *Handbook*, delayed by that ecology of suffering felt by us all in one
> way or another.  His legacy will continue as we press on.
>
> Beyond these major milestones, I also fondly remember our small
> encounters: visits, lunches or dinners at conferences, being on panels
> together, serving on editorial boards with him, and regular e-mail
> exchanges.  I always felt like I came away wiser from each of them.  I also
> vividly remember his broad smile every time he saw me.  He loved the work,
> and he loved the people with whom he did it.
>
> Rest in peace, dear friend,
> Francis
>
> --
> *Francis M. Hult, PhD, FRGS* | Professor
> Department of Education
> University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC)
>
> Editor, Educational Linguistics Book Series
> <https://www.springer.com/series/5894>
> Co-Editor, Contributions to the Sociology of Language Book Series
> <https://www.degruyter.com/view/serial/16644>
>
> Web Profile <https://education.umbc.edu/faculty-list/francis-m-hult/> |
> Academia.edu <http://umbc.academia.edu/FrancisMHult> | Google Scholar
> <https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=2x7pOMwAAAAJ&h> | TESOL at UMBC
> <http://tesol.umbc.edu/>
>
>
>
>
>
> *From: *Lgpolicy <lgpolicy-bounces at lists.mail.umbc.edu> on behalf of
>> "Francis M. Hult via Lgpolicy" <lgpolicy at lists.mail.umbc.edu>
>> *Reply to: *"lgpolicy at lists.mail.umbc.edu" <lgpolicy at lists.mail.umbc.edu>
>> *Date: *Sunday 21 August 2022 at 17:16
>> *To: *"lgpolicy at lists.mail.umbc.edu" <lgpolicy at lists.mail.umbc.edu>,
>> Educational Linguistics List <edling at lists.mail.umbc.edu>
>> *Cc: *"Francis M. Hult" <fmhult at umbc.edu>
>> *Subject: *[Lgpolicy] Share Your Memories of Bernard Spolsky
>>
>>
>>
>> Dear Colleagues,
>>
>>
>>
>> Professor Bernard Spolsky meant so much to many of us as a scholar,
>> friend, and mentor.  He founded the field of educational linguistics, and
>> he was a pioneer in the field of language policy.  As moderator of the
>> Edling and Lgpolicy listservs, I invite list members to share their
>> favorite memories of Bernard as a tribute to him.  I am cross-posting for
>> those who are not on both lists.
>>
>>
>>
>> Best,
>>
>> Francis
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> *Francis M. Hult, PhD, FRGS* | Professor
>>
>> Department of Education
>>
>> University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC)
>>
>>
>>
>> Editor, Educational Linguistics Book Series
>> <https://www.springer.com/series/5894>
>>
>> Co-Editor, Contributions to the Sociology of Language Book Series
>> <https://www.degruyter.com/view/serial/16644>
>>
>>
>>
>> Web Profile <https://education.umbc.edu/faculty-list/francis-m-hult/> |
>> Academia.edu <http://umbc.academia.edu/FrancisMHult> | Google Scholar
>> <https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=2x7pOMwAAAAJ&h> | TESOL at UMBC
>> <http://tesol.umbc.edu/>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
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> Edling at lists.mail.umbc.edu
> https://lists.mail.umbc.edu/mailman/listinfo/edling
>
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