The LSC completed a self study in 2019 to evaluate progress since the center's founding in 2013. In spring 2021 we continued that process by launching five committees of faculty and students to determine the next best steps, to ensure that the LSC's priorities and activities are aligned with the broader language science community.

37 language science community members, including TTK and PTK faculty, graduate students, and undergraduate students, participated as committee members. They represented 11 different units and 5 colleges. 

We also recruited 6 distinguished faculty members from other universities to participate as external consultants:

• Judy Kroll (University of California Irvine)
• Jim Magnuson (University of Connecticut)
• Karla McGregor (Boys Town National Research Hospital)
• Martha Palmer (University of Colorado Boulder)
• Roumi Pancheva (University of Southern California)
• Janet Werker (University of British Columbia)

After a total of 27 meetings across the 5 committees, they presented their recommendations to the external consultants and other language science community members for additional discussion.

Committee Recommendations

Graduate education

Graduate education has always been core to the language science community at UMD. Since 2008, graduate education initiatives in language science have been generously funded by two NSF training grants: IGERT (2008-2015, $3M) and NRT (2015-2021, $3M). These grants provided direct support to trainees through stipends and research/travel funds, as well as funding numerous research and training activities that served a larger group of students. The NRT grant also provided substantial support for one of the Assistant Directors of the LSC. 

The committee reaffirmed the importance of graduate education to the language science community. They aimed to identify strategies for preserving the most valuable features of the LSC’s graduate education program despite the dramatic decrease in financial support. They also recognized an opportunity to make LSC’s programs more inclusive, without the constraint of following NSF’s priorities (e.g. interdisciplinary research). They emphasized the core values that are relevant to all students, regardless of whether they pursue interdisciplinary research:

• All students should have opportunities to learn from other disciplines. There’s value in being exposed to diverse ideas from different disciplines, even if it doesn’t lead to new collaborations or an interdisciplinary research program. 
• Students and faculty should challenge themselves to communicate clearly to others, AND to contend with unfamiliar ideas they don’t immediately understand. 
• Students and faculty should be willing to invest time and effort into the language science community in order to get long-term benefits. If you withdraw when you’re busy or it’s inconvenient, the resource might not be there when you need it later. 

Recommendations

• Create a Language Science Certificate program that encourages interdisciplinary research, engagement with students and faculty from different departments, and contending with unfamiliar concepts and approaches. 
• Formalize student membership in the Language Science Center with concrete benefits and expectations. 
• Create a set of winter term courses to help promote cross-departmental connections and provide opportunities for in-depth interdisciplinary research discussions, training in data analysis skills, professional development, and peer-to-peer teaching. 
• Continue Language Science Lunch Talks with a broader range of presenters and formats.
• Help more students apply for NIH F31 (pre-doc) and F32 (post-doc) fellowships, perhaps by creating a summer course modeled on the NACS grant-writing course. Long-term, this will improve our chances of getting an NIH T32 grant. 
• Assemble a team to develop a long-term strategy for pursuing a T32 grant. 
• Create at least one summer course related to professional development, formalizing LSC’s commitment to supporting students’ career development and bringing in tuition revenue to support graduate education activities. 

Undergraduate education

The LSC has had a positive impact on a small number of undergraduate students through its PULSAR program. This committee focused on the potential for the LSC to impact a larger and more diverse group of students. 

• More students should encounter language science and its relevance to social issues, regardless of whether they pursue further study in language science. 
• Language science majors and research teams should be more diverse. 
• The LSC could harness and amplify the talent and enthusiasm that’s already present by bringing people together more intentionally--both instructors and the undergraduate students themselves.
• There is clear demand for programming at the intersection of language, data, and technology. The LSC is well positioned to host a new program, but it will require additional investment. It may be best to proceed gradually, rather than attempting to create a new minor from scratch. 

Recommendations

• Establish a cross-major undergraduate student community to draw more students into language science majors, provide alternative ways to engage with language science for students who will not pursue language science majors/careers, and provide more peer support. 
• Establish a network of undergraduate instructors to provide more peer support, promote collaboration on shared values like increasing diversity, and increase awareness of different fields of language science at the undergraduate level. 
• Offer and promote courses that will attract more diverse students into language science, reach students earlier in their undergraduate career, and bring in revenue for the LSC (through summer and winter courses) to support undergraduate programming. 
• Develop a “summer camp” program aimed at high school students, transfer students, and/or early-stage undergraduates to attract talented students to language science majors at UMD, bring more diverse students into language science earlier in the “pipeline”, and bring in revenue to support other education programs. 
• Gradually build toward a certificate or minor that would connect language science to other areas (e.g. data science or human language technology) with clear career opportunities and serve a large number of students who are currently not well served by existing programs.

Research

The UMD language science community is unique in the U.S. in the depth of talent spread over multiple fields. Keeping the community well-connected across departments amplifies the impact of all that talent. The LSC already plays an important role in the formation of new research collaborations and grants, by bringing together students and faculty from different departments and providing frequent opportunities for formal and informal discussions of research topics with cross-cutting interest. It’s important to ensure that the LSC’s role is acknowledged, so that faculty continue to invest their effort and the university continues to invest its funds. 

Recommendations

• Make LSC’s role in research grants more transparent by requiring LSC members to allocate a small percentage of their individual credit to LSC on all new grants, and better publicizing the grant support LSC already provides. 
• Host more focused research workshops/retreats to allow more depth as well as breadth in research discussions and build capacity for large-scale research initiatives in specific areas.
• Create an ARLIS “liaison” position to develop the relationship between LSC and ARLIS. 

Diversity and inclusion

Everyone in the community shares the belief that integrating insights from multiple disciplines improves both education and research. The same is true of diversity of identity--gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, sexual orientation, age, and ability. Bringing together diverse perspectives makes our education more effective and our research more likely to have broad impact. 

This committee identified several areas where the LSC could act immediately to make improvements:

1. The departments and programs that make up the language science community have very different distributions of race, gender, and nationality, but all could benefit by recruiting more diverse students and faculty. The LSC can have the most impact by working on recruitment and support at the undergraduate level. 
2. Some graduate students have felt unwelcome or intimidated at LSC events, because of how the community treats people with their personal identity, their academic/professional identity, or both. The LSC should create an environment that mediates between different departments effectively, so students and faculty can build trust and feel safe enough to take risks. 
3. There are some practical barriers to participation that are relatively easily remedied: geography, physical accessibility, audio/visual accessibility, etc. The LSC should immediately remedy the things within our control, and provide recommendations and resources for others in the community.

Recommendations

Increase diversity in undergraduate courses, majors, and research opportunities.

• Establish contacts with community colleges and provide more support for transfer students.
• Make a list of courses that highlight the value of diverse perspectives, and disseminate it to undergrad advisors across departments
• Share teaching “modules” across courses in different departments, so it’s easier to include content that highlights the value of diverse perspectives
• Provide funding for students who can’t access research opportunities due to financial constraints.
• Create an inviting student community to keep students engaged between their first intro course and eventually getting involved in research. 

Create an inclusive environment at LSC activities.

• Disseminate community guidelines (see below) and regularly reinforce them at LSC events/activities.
• Use faculty moderators to improve the discussion at LSLT.
• Establish a program for new graduate students who are interested in getting involved in LSC activities to be paired with a more senior student for an informal meeting, to get oriented to the community. 
• Implement a routine process to learn about climate/inclusion issues the LSC should address.

Remove barriers to participation.

• Provide the option to attend talks remotely whenever possible.
• Share information related to physical accessibility of LSC activities.
• Provide guidelines for accessible presentations.

LSC community guidelines

This is a community where everyone has something to learn from everyone else, both faculty and students. You’ll encounter concepts, theoretical frameworks, and research approaches that are very different from what you’re familiar with. What is unfamiliar might seem incomprehensible or even incorrect. Please keep the following guidelines in mind when interacting with other students and faculty, especially those who are different from you in their academic or personal background:

• Respect any requests or boundaries set by the person you’re interacting with. 
• Introduce yourself and provide context (e.g. department, pronouns) when you’re giving a talk, asking a question, or meeting someone new. 
• Keep your relative power in mind (whether based on your personal identity or your position in the university hierarchy), and use it to support people rather than put them down.
• Invite people to teach you about what they know, rather than merely providing critiques based on your perspective.
• Approach conversations with humility: while you may know more about some things, chances are they know more about something else.
• Don’t assume that someone shares your assumptions or jargon: ask questions to find out.
  • Follow any guidelines set by a presenter about questions during their talk.
  • Give them the kind of feedback they ask for (not necessarily the kind you think is most important).
  • Use their requested pronouns.

Leadership & Shared Ownership

The LSC is going through some growing pains as it transitions from a small, grassroots initiative into a larger, more complex organization. It has been a challenge to align the priorities that faculty and students are most passionate about with the expectations of university administration. This committee focused its recommendations on changes to the Plan of Organization (POO) aimed primarily at broadening the group of people who participate in decision-making and operations. 

Recommended changes to the POO:

1. Revive and strengthen formal procedures for establishing membership in LSC for both students and faculty, with defined benefits and expectations. 
2. Select Associate Directors who will take on the coordination of specific areas of LSC activity, e.g. graduate education, undergraduate education, research, diversity and inclusion, outreach. 
3. Select an Executive Director to take on some of the Director’s administrative duties, and act as the liaison between the Steering Committee and the management team. 
4. Replace the Executive Committee with an elected Steering Committee of faculty and students representing diverse LSC constituencies. 
5. Establish an elected Graduate Student Board to coordinate student leadership/activities.