Time
Tuesdays, 3:30–4:20 PM
Place
DEN 212 and Zoom (spring quarter)
Instructor
Naomi Tachikawa Shapiro
Office hours
Mondays, 3:30–4:30 PM, on Zoom
Tuesdays, 2:00–3:00 PM, at rotating locations
And by appointment

Seminar description

Welcome to UW Linguistics! LING 599B is a new proseminar series, designed to help ground your PhD experience and connect you with fellow PhD students and faculty in the department. Over the next three quarters, we will focus on professional development, mental health, and ethical and inclusive research practices. While we will touch upon all of these themes throughout the year, each quarter will center on particular topics:

The proseminar will feature many guest speakers and panel discussions throughout the year to help expose you to multiple perspectives and opportunities. We will also hold "workshop" days, where you will have the option to get feedback on relevant written pieces, such as application statements.

Recordings

To facilitate remote and/or asynchronous attendance, each meeting of the proseminar will be recorded and posted to our course-specific Canvas.

Assignments

The assignments for the proseminar will be lightweight. They will consist of small activities (e.g., show-and-tells, mini presentations), the occasional reading, optional workshop pieces, and one funding application statement. With the exception of the workshop pieces and application statement, please expect to spend up to an hour each week on assignments. We will use Canvas for all assignment submissions and online discussions.

Grading

Since LING 599B is purely meant to be a resource for you, very few assignments will be graded for credit. With that said, you will get as much out of the proseminar as you put into it. In turn, I promise to always be engaged during our time together and to provide thorough feedback on deliverables, such as workshop pieces and application statements.

Continuous feedback

Is there a topic, skill, or reading you would like to see featured? What about the proseminar is working or not working well for you? Please let me know! To improve our time together, I have created a Google Form (accessible via Canvas) to collect anonymous feedback and requests. You may fill out this form as many times as you like. While you must sign in with your UW NetID to supply feedback, your responses are 100% anonymous.

Office hours

I welcome you to use my office hours to discuss the proseminar, UW Linguistics, research, academia, mental health, life—anything. I will hold a mixture of virtual and in-person office hours this quarter:

If, at any point, you would prefer to meet with me outside of my usual office hours, please do reach out to set up an appointment.

Course (and department) culture

UW Linguistics is continually evolving and endeavoring to create a more inclusive and equitable world, both in terms of our own department culture and how we as researchers engage with society. Exemplifying this pursuit, LING 599B grew out of the department's anti-racism statement, which was issued in June 2020 in support of the protests against the longstanding harms perpetuated against the Black and greater BIPOC communities.

In this spirit, it is important that we not only discuss and adopt inclusive research practices, but that we also embody inclusivity in our day-to-day interactions. With this goal in mind, please be respectful and supportive of your fellow PhD students and department members. Listening to one another and building on each other's contributions will help us establish a safe, empowering, and intellectually and socially engaged community, one that promotes equity in linguistics and beyond.

In terms of LING 599B specifically, I embrace and affirm students of all ages, socioeconomic backgrounds, ethnic and religious backgrounds, sexual and gender identities, sexual orientations, and of all abilities in this class. I want this proseminar to be a positive experience for everyone. It is thus my own personal policy, as well as UW policy, to create an inclusive and accessible learning environment.

Below are the university’s statements regarding accessibility and accommodations. I also invite you to share with me any needs you might have that are undocumented or circumstances you are facing that are not covered by these policies. I am here to support you to the best of my ability.

  1. Access and accommodations: Your experience in this class is important to me. It is the policy and practice of the University of Washington to create inclusive and accessible learning environments consistent with federal and state law. If you have already established accommodations with Disability Resources for Students (DRS), please activate your accommodations via my DRS so we can discuss how they will be implemented in this course.

    If you have not yet established services through DRS, but have a temporary health condition or permanent disability that requires accommodations (conditions include but not limited to; mental health, attention-related, learning, vision, hearing, physical or health impacts), contact DRS directly to set up an Access Plan. DRS facilitates the interactive process that establishes reasonable accommodations. Contact DRS at disability.uw.edu.

  2. Religious accommodations: Washington state law requires that UW develop a policy for accommodation of student absences or significant hardship due to reasons of faith or conscience, or for organized religious activities. The UW’s policy, including more information about how to request an accommodation, is available at Religious Accommodations Policy. Accommodations must be requested within the first two weeks of this course using the Religious Accommodations Request form.

Land acknowledgement

Adapted from the UW land acknowledgement: I respectfully acknowledge the Coast Salish peoples of this land, the land that touches the shared waters of all tribes and bands within the Suquamish, Tulalip, and Muckleshoot nations.


Autumn

Date Topic Location Tuesday OH
Oct 5 Introduction
[slides]
GUG 415L Microsoft Café (CSE2)
Oct 12 Searching for external funding opportunities
[slides (outdated as of Nov 19)] [GFIS] [GFIS Research Guide] [GFIS Blog] [599B funding page]
GUG 415L Evolutionary Grounds (LSB)
Oct 19 Graduate School Office of Fellowships & Awards
Guest speaker: Robyn Davis, Assistant Director
[UW Graduate School list of fellowships] [fellowships timeline]
SAV 264 Zoom Parnassus (ART)
Zoom
Oct 26 Foreign Language & Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowship
Guest speaker: Dana O'Leary, Jackson School Fellowship Manager
[slides] [FLAS Fellowship]
Zoom Mary Gates Hall Espresso + Commons (MGH)
Assignment: 11/2 panel questions due Thurs, Oct 28
Nov 2 Faculty panel: Lifecycle of a research project
Panelists: Emily M. Bender, Gina-Anne Levow, Qi Cheng, Richard Wright, Shane Steinert-Threlkeld, & Sharon Hargus
[slides]
SAV 264 Orin's Place (PCAR)
Assignment: 11/9 panel questions due Thurs, Nov 4
Nov 9 Student panel: Applying for external funding
Panelists: Agatha Downey, Angie McMillan-Major, Emily Ahn, & Tsudoi Wada
[slides]
SAV 264 Parnassus (ART)
Assignment: "External funding application" due Thurs, Nov 11
Nov 16 Workshop: Funding applications
*Please read the workshop items beforehand!
[slides] [writing tips worksheet]
GUG 415L Study Room 333 (SUZ)
Assignment: "IRB 101" due Thurs, Nov 18
Nov 23 Human Subjects Division (HSD)
Guest speaker: Galen Basse, Team Operations Lead
[slides] [HSD] [IRB 101 tutorial]
Zoom Zoom
Nov 30 UW Libraries
Guest speaker: Dan Mandeville, Linguistics Librarian
[slides] [Ling Research Guide] [CompLing Research Guide] [Researcher Tutorial] [Graduate Student Research Institute] [Research Commons] [Open Scholarship Commons] [borrowing privileges]
SAV 264 Zoom Starbucks (SUZ)
Zoom
Assignment: 12/7 panel questions due Thurs, Dec 2
Dec 7 Student panel: What I wish I knew when I started graduate school
(+ Defying the requirements)

Panelists: Angie McMillan-Major, Ben Jones, Ella Deaton, Emily Ahn, & Sara Ng
[slides]
SAV 264 Orin's Place (PCAR)

Winter

Date Topic Location Tuesday OH
Jan 4 Introduction
[slides]
Zoom Zoom
Jan 11 Work-life balance
[slides] [small strategies discussion board ]
ECE 042 Study Room 333 (SUZ)
Reading: How to rest well (Pang, 2021)
Jan 18 Technological resources
Guest speaker: Rob Squizzero, PhD Candidate
[slides] [technological resources discussion board ]
ECE 042 Zoom Study Room 333 (SUZ)
Zoom
Assignment: "Calendaring downtime" due by 3:30 PM
Jan 25 Hobby show-and-tell
[hobby slides ]
ECE 042 Zoom Study Room 333 (SUZ)
Zoom
Assignment: "Hobby show-and-tell" due by 3:30 PM
Feb 1 Mental health & imposter syndrome
[slides] [Evans et al., 2018] [Bravata et al., 2019] [Berry et al., 2020] [Valerie Young on imposter syndrome (YouTube)] [Firth, 2019] [GAIP coverage overview] [UW Counseling Center] [Find a therapist (Psychology Today)]
ECE 042 Study Room 333 (SUZ)
Assignment: 2/8 panel questions due Fri, Feb 4
Feb 8 Faculty panel: Mental health
Panelists: Laura McGarrity, Myriam Lapierre, Naja Ferjan Ramírez, & Shane Steinert-Threlkeld
[slides]
ECE 042 Zoom LDP Lab (Smith 002)
Assignment: 2/16 psychotherapist questions due Fri, Feb 11
Feb 15 Feb 16 Coping with grad school
Guest psychotherapist: Jonathan Goodman
Zoom Zoom
Feb 22 Toward racial justice in linguistics
[slides] [Charity Hudley, Mallinson, & Bucholtz, 2020a] [LSA Statement on Race]
ECE 042 Orin's Place (PCAR)
Mar 1 Toward racial justice in linguistics – continued
[slides] [Charity Hudley, Mallinson, & Bucholtz, 2020a] [LSA Statement on Race]
ECE 042 City Grind Espresso (Henry Art Gallery)
Mar 8 Ask anything day
[slides]
ECE 042 Starbucks (HUB)

Spring

Date Topic Location Tuesday OH
Mar 29 Toward racial justice in linguistics – continued
[slides] [reading tips ] [Clemons & Lawrence, 2020] [DeGraff, 2020] [Gaby & Woods, 2020] [Leonard, 2020] [Montoya, 2020] [Peterson, 2020] [Charity Hudley, Mallinson, & Bucholtz, 2020b] [LSA Statement on Race]
DEN 212 Orin's Place (PCAR)
Reading:
Apr 5 Epistemological racism
[slides] [reading tips ] [Motha, 2020] [Kendi, 2019]
DEN 212 Orin's Place (PCAR)
Reading:
  • Confronting epistemological racism, decolonizing scholarly knowledge: Race and gender in applied linguistics (Kubota, 2020)
Apr 12 Forming doctoral committees
[slides] [doctoral degree policies] [supervisory committees] [reading committees] [find graduate faculty] [MyGrad] [Jason Eisner on how to evaluate an advisor] [Nature's guide for mentors]
DEN 212 Orin's Place (PCAR)
Assignment: 4/26 discussion questions due by 3:30 PM
Apr 19 Diverse dimensions of diversity & equity in linguistics
[slides] [mini presentation slides ]
DEN 212 Orin's Place (PCAR)
Assignments:
  • "Mini reading presentations" due by 3:30 PM
  • "Three funding opportunities" due Fri, Apr 22
Reading (one of the following):
  • Academic caregivers on organizational and community resilience in academia (Fuck individual resilience) (Ahn et al., 2021)
  • Variation in English gendered pronouns: Analysis and recommendations for ethics in linguistics (Conrod, in press)
  • Transcriptivism: An ethical framework for modern linguistics (Kibbey, 2019)
  • Gender bias and stereotypes in linguistic example sentences (Kotek et al., 2021)
  • Autistic identity and language learning: Response to Kissine (McCracken, 2021)
Apr 26 Equitable & inclusive teaching in linguistics
Guest speaker: Wei Zuo, Professor and Instructional Consultant
[discussion questions ] [facilitated conversation ] [Center for Teaching and Learning] [Calhoun et al., 2021] [Holliday & Squires, 2020] [June, 2015] [Social Justice Pedagogies Symposium]
Zoom Zoom
Reading (one of the following):
May 3 Brainstorm day
[slides]
DEN 212 Starbucks (HRC)
Assignment: "Funding application statement" due Fri, May 6
May 10 Field trip: A stroll through campus
[self-guided campus tour] [self-guided Indigenous walking tour] [Henry Art Gallery] [Burke Museum of Natural History & Culture] [Theodor Jacobsen Observatory] [UW Planetarium]
BRK Off the Rez Cafe (BRK)
May 17 Faculty social
Faculty: Barbara Citko, Betsy Evans, Emily M. Bender, Laura McGarrity, Qi Cheng, & Richard Wright
[slides] [field trips sign-up sheet ]
DEN 212 Off the Rez Cafe (BRK)
May 17 Field trip: Theodor Jacobsen Observatory (9:00–11:00 PM) OBS
May 20 Field trip: UW Planetarium (12:00–1:00 PM) PAA A220
Assignment: 5/24 panel questions due Fri, May 20
May 24 Faculty panel: Writing & publishing
Panelists: Barbara Citko, Naja Ferjan Ramírez, Shane Steinert-Threlkeld, & Toshiyuki Ogihara
[slides]
DEN 212 Orin's Place
Cancelled
May 31 End-of-year party!  🎉  🎉  🎉
[slides]
DEN 212 Orin's Place (PCAR)

Resources  *This is a growing list 🌱