Durham linguistics under threat

[Miriam Meyerhoff]

Dear Colleagues,

My apologies if this is a cross-posting. I am forwarding a letter we
received this morning from the Linguistics Association of Great
Britain announcing plans by the administration of the University of
Durham to close the Department of Linguistics almost immediately.
Apparently, Linguistics and several other smaller departments are
under threat because of cost-cutting measures at the university-wide
level.

Durham's linguistics department is academically extremely
well-regarded, and although I realise that Durham's linguistics
department is not a hot-bed of research into language and gender,
many of us who do work on language and gender will be associated with
smaller programmes in our own institutions. You may, therefore, share
my concern that a department -- no matter how well it is performing
-- could being slated for closure simply because it is small and
therefore an easy target. Please consider joining us in writing a
letter/email to the administration at Durham (the address is below),
protesting this proposal.


Miriam Meyerhoff
University of Edinburgh


-----Original Message-----
From: alan at essex.ac.uk [mailto:alan at essex.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Maggie
Tallerman
Sent: 19 June 2003 20:43
To: lagb
Subject: Proposed closure of Linguistics at Durham (UK)


Dear Colleagues,

The Department of Linguistics at the University of Durham has learned
this week that the management of the University is proposing to close us
down, a move that would terminate the teaching of Linguistics at Durham.
The last intake of undergraduate and graduate students is planned to be
October 2003, and all current undergraduate and graduate students have
already been informed of these intentions in writing.

The motivation for this shocking decision cannot be that we are
underperforming, since by any objective measure that can be applied to a
department in the UK we are highly successful. However, the University
has financial problems, and Linguistics, as a small department, is an
easy target. The only alternative to redundancy that the management have
come up with is to attempt to get another institution to take on all
existing members of the department.  However, since they are not
planning on releasing our undergraduate quota, it is unlikely that
another institution would be interested.

We think that a flood of support might influence the decision, and thus
we appeal to the international community of linguists to support us by
writing to the Vice Chancellor at Durham. The following facts may help:

o 	Joseph Emonds is Emeritus Professor in Linguistics at Durham;
the
current Chair is Anders Holmberg.
o 	In the most recent RAE (2001) we achieved a score of 5.
o 	In 2002 and 2003 we were rated 4th of the 29 linguistics
departments in the UK in the Times Higher Education survey.
o 	Our externally funded research income was recently enhanced by a
grant of 371,753 GBP to Anders Holmberg, in collaboration with
colleagues at Cambridge.
o 	Despite its small size, the Department has more graduate
students
than almost any department at Durham outside the Social Sciences;
two-thirds of these are overseas students.
o 	Our graduate students are highly competitive internationally,
holding positions in linguistics and related disciplines at such
institutions as Jordan University of Science and Technology; Lund
University, Sweden; United Nations, USA; San Jos State University, USA;
University of Pittsburgh, USA; Bogazici University, Turkey; Mie
University, Japan; University of Sheffield; University of Wolverhampton;
University of Yazd, Iran; Speech, Artificial Intelligence and Language
Labs of Lernout & Hauspie, Austria; Ministry of Defence and Aviation,
Saudi Arabia.
o 	Department members are actively involved in supporting the
profession internationally, producing recent successful textbooks (e.g.
Davenport & Hannahs, Introducing Phonetics & Phonology; Tallerman,
Understanding Syntax), serving as journal editors and members of
editorial boards (Tallerman, Holmberg, Young-Scholten), taking leading
roles in linguistics organisations (Holmberg, current president of
GLOW), and acting on advisory committees (Hannahs, LinguistList
advisor).

If you feel able to write, please address your letter to the Vice
Chancellor: Prof. Sir Kenneth Calman, University of Durham, Old Shire
Hall, Old Elvet, DH1 3HP, United Kingdom. E-mail:
<kenneth.calman at durham.ac.uk> fax: +44(0)191-334-6250.

It would also be very helpful to copy your letter to the Chair of
Linguistics, Anders Holmberg <anders.holmberg at durham.ac.uk>, fax
+44(0)191-334-3001.

>>From all in Linguistics at Durham, thank you for your support.

          ********************************************************

   Dr. Maggie Tallerman
   Review Editor, Journal of Linguistics           tel: +44 (0)191 334
3010
   Department of Linguistics                       fax: +44 (0)191 334
3001
   University of Durham
<maggie.tallerman at durham.ac.uk>
   Elvet Riverside
http://www.dur.ac.uk/Linguistics/maggie1.html
   DURHAM DH1 3JT
   U.K.

          ********************************************************