2008 Ballot Statement for the LSA Executive Committee

Linguistics is well-positioned to thrive in the current scientific and educational environment, and I would like to see the LSA work to capitalize on this opportunity. The pressing issues of globalization place language endangerment in the spotlight, making the case for fieldwork support easier to make than ever before. The centrality of the Web to daily communication puts a massive amount of new data at our fingertips, and it makes the ability to process and systematize that data all the more valuable. The field's renewed emphasis on experimental approaches brings it more squarely into the cognitive sciences. And, in the coming years, language will be increasingly central to research in anthropology, computer science, psychology, sociology, and theoretical biology, among others. All these factors favor the growth of our field.

These efforts begin with education. Here again, the case for linguistics is clear and strong. The Association of American Colleges and Universities recently surveyed business leaders to find out what they value in prospective employees. The results read like an advertisement for a linguistics education. According to the study, employers value broad cultural awareness and sensitivity to issues concerning globalization, and they seek out college graduates who are skilled in analytic reasoning and able to balance quantitative analysis with creative approaches to problem solving. This mixed emphasis on skills from the sciences and the humanities is almost unique to linguistics. If we make employers aware of what our students have to offer (dispelling old notions about the practical value of a linguistics education in the process), then demand will rise. In the current business-oriented climate of U.S. higher education, this will furnish a powerful argument for building up existing programs and for starting new ones.

Funding will be a major issue in the coming years. Our research questions are more ambitious than ever before. With these new efforts come new costs --- just when federal funding agencies are seeing their budgets cut dramatically. I believe that the LSA can be an influential advocate for supporting linguistic research, and I believe it can help researchers find and create new funding opportunities. In general, the Society has made significant progress in increasing the impact of linguistics in recent years, with, for example, its content-rich website, its eLanguage initiative, and its forceful arguments for language preservation. The changes have all been forward-looking and geared towards increasing the relevance of linguistics, and I would like to see the trends continue at an even greater pace.