It is our great pleasure to share with you the wonderful news that Professor Emeritus and former Provost and Vice Chancellor Jim Staros has created with the University a new endowment fund to honor his wife, Professor Emerita Alice Harris, that will support summer research fellowships for graduate and undergraduate linguistics students.

When fully endowed, the Alice Carmichael Harris Summer Research Fellowship Fund will provide service-free summer stipends for Harris Fellows, who will be selected from among the current graduate PhD students and undergraduate majors. Reflecting the nature of Professor Harris’s own research, preference will be given to students engaging in fieldwork or experimental research, but students working in any area of linguistics may be appointed Harris Fellows.

While the fund is now open for contributions from any donors, Jim has made the fund the sole beneficiary of his IRA, which is currently valued at more than $300,000, as a bequest to fully endow the fund. In the meantime, Jim and Alice are also already building the fund through smaller annual contributions.

To celebrate the creation of this fund, the Linguistics Department will on December 12th be offering a champaign toast to both Jim and Alice for this incredibly generous gift. If you’d like to attend, please email Department Chair Seth Cable. In the meantime, please join us in thanking Jim and Alice for creating this new fund.