Legislation Adopted by the
Department
Department of Linguistics
UCLA
Source: faculty meeting minutes
April 14, 1990: Qualifying Papers
"In order to be advanced to candidacy, you are required to prepare two original research papers in different areas or fields of linguistics. These papers are to be submitted to and approved by a doctoral guidance committee."
October 13, 1990: Courses for MA
"All students, regardless of whether they have an MA when they enter or not, will now have to take at least the five [now four; see below] required courses; i.e. the only courses from which they might be exempted on the basis of course work elsewhere are the electives."
"Only survey courses [not proseminars] will satisfy MA elective course requirements."
May 15, 1992: Dissertation Prospectus Content
"The dissertation prospectus should be a maximum of 20 pages long and should include the following:
--a statement of the research question and the candidate's relevant previous
work
--a bibliography of relevant literature (the student should be prepared to
discuss the content of the references listed and why they are relevant, i.e.
a massive list of items "to be consulted" is not acceptable)
--a plan for research, e.g. field work, laboratory research, types of data
to further investigated which will fill in gaps and answer questions raised
in preparation of the prospectus."
June 6, 1992: Superannuated Students
"All students beyond the seven year limit who are not registered or on official Leave of Absence will have their files removed from the active student roster and will not be further discussed at year end faculty meetings. Should students on inactive status wish to continue work toward completion of their degrees, they must apply for readmission to the graduate program before further discussion."
February 19, 1999: Second Language Requirement, Historical Linguistics
"Abandon second language requirement.
Historical Linguistics becomes a
requirement only at the undergraduate level."
February 26, 1999: Time To Degree; Study Lists
"We only agree to support graduate students through Year 5. In exceptional circumstances, support is sometimes offered to students beyond the fifth year".
"In order to be eligible to further support, students to whom no other commitments have been made must apply for a Dissertation Year Fellowship during their fourth year."
"To remain in good standing, students must discuss their course requirements with their adviser and submit a department-supplied form, stating that this has been done. The form must be signed by their adviser and submitted to a designated member of the department staff."
March 9, 1999: Time to MA Degree; Field Methods
"The normative time for completion of the M.A. will be seven quarters. Earlier wording of our official policy, specifying four to six quarters in the M.A. program, is eliminated.
The normative deadline for advancement to candidacy (orals) is the end of the eleventh quarter.
Field Methods will be a 4 unit course, with 5 contact hours per week. Students will be expected to take the course during their second year."
October 1, 1999: Sixth Year Support
"The Department adopts the following ranked priorities for allocating teaching assistantships and department-controlled research assistantships:
--Adhering to obligatory directives of the Graduate Division
--Keeping commitments to students made at admission
--Funding sixth year students who conducted a serious job search
during their fifth year. Judgment on whether this criterion was met will be made at the June faculty meetings for reviewing student progress.
For purposes of this policy, "sixth year" is defined as 'sixth year, suitably adjusted for time spent on leave and taking required undergraduate prequisites.'"
[See also April 7, 2000, below.]
October 29, 1999: Workloads for First Year Students
"The department authorizes first year students to work as RA's."
"The department authorizes first year students to work as TA's."
November 12, 1999: Finding RAships for First Years
"The department asks the Admissions Committee to circulate appropriate application files among faculty, soliciting offers of RA support, prior to making their final decisions."
April 7, 2000: TAships for Seventh Year Students
"A supernumerary TAship is defined as one that the Department can assign,
after it has fulfilled all obligations to graduate students established in
their admit letters."
"The Department is willing to assign TAships to seventh year students, who
may apply in the annual competition for supernumerary TAships."
"In assigning supernumerary TAships, priority is given to graduate students
in the Linguistics Department (over students in other programs) if they have
a good teaching record and are in good academic standing."
April 14, 2000: PTE's for Independent Study
"It was decided to require PTE numbers to sign up for independent studies. This is 596A, 596B, 597, 598, 599."
February 22, 2002: Colloquia and Ph.D. Defenses
"1. A formal defense is required. It must be announced at least one week in advance and be open to the public.
2. A department colloquium is required, not necessarily on the dissertation topic. It must be announced at least one week in advance and be open to the public.
3. At the committee's option, the formal defense and colloquium may be combined into a single public event in the format of a colloquium."
February 2, 2007: Changes in the Graduate Course Requirements
1. Students may petition to substitute Linguistics 125 "Semantics" for Linguistics 200C, "Semantic Theory".
2. Students may satisfy the requirement for a graduate psycholinguistics course with Linguistics 209 "Computational Linguistics".
This renders permanent a change adopted as "experimental" on June 10, 2005. However, the department has agreed to discuss these requirements further during Spring 2007.
Academic Personnel and Teaching Load
Personnel Reviews for Assistant Professors (Dec. 8, 2000)
All personnel reviews for assistant professors will be voted on by the department faculty as a whole, rather than just by the Merit Review Committee.
Revision in policy on teaching loads (Oct. 20, 2006)
1. Sponsored research: It is resolved that PI’s and co-PI’s supervising at least two 50% time student research assistants on their grant or contract receive one third course release per quarter, subject to the Chair’s approval.
2. Co-teaching: It is resolved that full credit be given to each instructor in a co-taught course.
3. Heavy advising and other special circumstances: There are various special circumstances in which teaching release is occasionally granted, including hiring/retention packages, teaching outside the department, etc. It is resolved that faculty with exceptionally heavy advising loads also be considered for special treatment on an ad hoc basis.
4. Chair discretion. In acting on the discretionary items listed above, the Chair will bear in mind the need for all faculty to teach a certain minimum number of courses as well as the need to staff the Department’s course offerings.
Solicitation of student letters (Dec. 11, 2009)
The Department will solicit letters from students for all (and only) personnel actions in which the candidate's file is evaluated by the Committee on Academic Personnel. This includes proposed accelerations.
November 8, 1989: Student Membership on Colloquium Committee
"The faculty voted to recommend to the G[raduate] L[inguistics] C[ircle] that it consider forming a Colloquium Committee, which would include the department Chair as faculty representative but would be the decision making unit within the department in terms of choice of speakers and dispensation of funds allocated for guest speakers." [11/17/89: the GLC did indeed vote to establish such a committee.]
February 2, 1990: Colloquium and Faculty Meeting Scheduling
"There was a consensus that a Friday morning schedule with 1 1/2 hours allotted for faculty meetings and 1 1/2 for a Colloquium would be preferable to [the previous] arrangment ... It was left to the Chair to decide on the exact time configuration, with two 1 1/2 hours slots for faculty meeting followed by Colloquia in the time frame between 9:00 AM and 12:30 PM." [12/11/09: this was not implemented; both faculty meetings and colloquia continue to have 2 hour slots.]
Sept. 27, 1991: Phone Use
"There has been an informal departmental policy of covering faculty phone bills up to about $40, with faculty expected to reimburse the Department above this amount, either through recharging to grant accounts or personally paying. It was decided to continue with the current informal policy."
Sept. 27, 1991: Joint Mailing of LSA Abstracts
"Approval was expressed for the Department gathering abstracts for the LSA Annual Meeting and sending them as a group by Express Mail at departmental expense." [12/11/09: LSA abstract submission is now carried out over the Internet.]
October 10, 1992: Unsolicited FAX messages
"Members of the department were urged to tell their colleagues not to send large items to the departmental FAX number. For unsolicited items of any consequence, the Department will return a one page "request" that items not be sent by FAX without prior agreement of the recipient. For very large items, the Department will try to collect from the sender at 25 cents per page."
December 14, 2000: Mailing for Graduate Students
(policy adopted by chair)
"Grad students can use ordinary dept mail for job applications and conference submissions. The department however will not pay for express mail (or any variant thereof)."
[see however the exceptional case dealt with above]
February 22, 2002: Use of Syntax and Semantics
Lounge
"The faculty and the student representative agreed that the Syntax and Semantics
lounge (3103C Campbell) will not be used for regularly scheduled meetings
(classes, seminars, weekly consultant sessions etc.). Furthermore, the lounge
will not be used for any formal meetings between 12-2pm and 4-6pm so that
the students/faculty/visitors can have lunch/afternoon tea in this room."
October 3, 2008: Conference Room Policy
"Regularly scheduled instruction will not be held in the Conference Room. Exceptions to this policy will be made, by the Chair, only on an emergency basis."
