KCL 'DIVESTMENT IN THE HUMANITIES'
This site relates to KCL's plans January 2010 to reduce the size of the Humanities School by redundancy of 22 members of staff and to reorganize departments into 'creative' new groupings.
In particular, it is prompted by the actions of the head of school, Prof Jan Palmowski in informing two members of the Philosophy Dept, Prof Shalom Lappin and Dr Wilfried Meyer-Viol, that they were to be made redundant because the College was divesting itself of computational linguistics and in the same week seeking to force Prof Charles Travis into retirement contrary to the contractual arrangement KCL made in 2005 at the time of hiring Prof Travis.
Below you will find first Prof Shalom Lappin's description of his interview with Prof Palmowski and the context of that interview; below that description are a number of letters of protest which have been sent to the head of school of humanities and the Principal of KCL, Rick Trainor. I highlight below the email addresses of the relevant parties in the administration. If you would like to use one of these letters of protest as a template to echo the protests to KCL, please feel free to do so.
Prof Rick Trainor, Principal of King's College London
Prof Keith Hoggart, Vice-Principal of King's College London
Prof Jan Palmowski, Head of School of Humanities, King's College London
You might also consider sending your letters of protest in paper form to these individuals at King's College for which the address is below. In which case, you might also consider addressing your concerns to the Chair of Council at KCL, Lord Douro, for whom I lack an email address:
King's College London
Strand, London WC2R 2LS, UK
In addition, you may wish to consider signing the letter of protest written by students of the KCL Philosophy Dept:
http://www.protectphilosophyjobs.org.uk/
And you may wish to add your signature to Jonathan Adler's letter of protest at:
http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/kclhumanities
In addition, may I recommend that you join the wider protest of complaints about the Humanities, by signing the letter of protest concerning the chair of Paleaography at KCL at
http://www.PetitionOnline.com/spkcl10/
Letter from Group of Logic, Language and Computation @ KCL
International Letter of Protest
Steven Pinker's Letter of Protest
Edward Keenan's Letter of Protest
James Higginbotham's Letter of Protest
Ian Roberts's Letter of Protest
Rutger's Dept of Philosophy Letter of Protest
Letter from Italian Philosophers
Letter from the Philosophy Dept, University of California, Berkeley
Open Letter by Swedish Researchers
Letter of Protest from the International Federation of Computational Logic
Letter from the BPA and UK Learned Soceities in Philosophy
Open Letter from Johan van Benthem and 243 Logicians and Computer Scientists
Letter from the Philosophy Dept, Birkbeck College, University of London
Letter from the members of the Linguistics and Philology section of the British Academy
Letter from the Philosophy Dept University of Sheffield
Letter from Heads of Philosophy Depts in the Russell Group
Special Interest Group on Discourse and Dialogue Letter in Support of Jonathan Ginzburg
Letter from the Yale Philosophy Dept
Letter from Alan Gibbons & Tom Maibaum
Letter from the members of the Philosophy section of the British Academy
Open Letter from German Researchers
Prof Shalom Lappin's Account: [return to contents]
The Head of the School of Humanities, Jan Palmorski, summoned me to his office without warning yesterday evening to inform me that King's has decided to "divest of computational linguistics", and so my position would be redundant as of September. This is an incredible development. Since moving back to Philosophy from Computer Science in September 2005 I have been Director of Graduate Studies. I was responsible, together with David Papineau, for formulating the Department's RAE 2008 submission. As you know, The Department was ranked third nationally in this research exercise. My monograph on intensional logic and my articles were a significant part of this submission. I was also a member of both the RAE 2001 and the RAE 2008 Linguistics Panels. I have two major books in press now (with Wiley Blackwell), due to appear later this year. I have been invited to give a research course on one of these books, devoted to the issue of linguistic nativism and learning theory at the North American Summer School of Logic and Language in June (University of Indiana at Bloomington), and an invited plenary lecture on the book at the European Summer School of Logic and Language in August (University of Copenhagen). In the Philosophy Department I have been supervising students and giving seminars on issues in logic, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, and cognitive science. I have also been teaching and convening an undergraduate intercollated course on Neuroscience and Mind for the Neuroscience Department at Guy's Campus, and I have been organizing a proposal for an MSc Program in Cognitive Science across Philosophy, Computer Science, Neuroscience, and The Institute of Psychology. My research and teaching is, then, based in core areas of Philosophy, and it is highly interdisciplinary.
In May 2009 I was offered a Chair, with tenure, with cross appointment in the Computer Science Department and the Cognitive Science Program, at the Hebrew University. For family reasons I decided to remain at King's. Before turning down this offer, I spoke to my Head of Department, David Papineau, on several occasions, informing him of the offer and asking him if I was secure at King's, in light of the announced budget cuts. He informed me that as far as he was concerned, my position was safe. I also spoke to Jan Palmorski, inquiring about possible conditions for early retirement in connection. When he indicated what these were likely to be, I told him that they did not meet my financial requirements, and I asked if either I or the Department were in danger of cuts. He said that we were not, although there would be a review of the School's faculty, and any decisions on redundancy would be made on the basis of research productivity, teaching activity, and administrative service. On the strength of these assurances, I turned down the offer from the Hebrew University in July.
I now find myself threatened with redundancy six years before scheduled retirement, with totally inadequate pension provisions, while at the height of my research career. This is grossly unfair, and violates statements often made by the Principal and other members of the administration to the effect that excellence in research is King's priority. This threat is also a serious miscarriage of justice, given my level of productivity, and the fact that I was allowed to give up a very attractive offer on the basis of assurances that have turned out to be without foundation. I would appreciate your help and support in this matter.
Sincerely, Shalom Lappin [TOP]
UCL et al letter of protest [return to contents]
Dear Professor Palmowski,
We the undersigned are writing to you to express our shock at recent events at King’s College. We are concerned with the drastic plans for the reorganization of Humanities with a large number of redundancies. And in particular, we are concerned at the news relating to our own disciplines: that Prof Shalom Lappin and Dr Wilfried Meyer-Viol are to face compulsory redundancy as of autumn 2010, and that Prof Charles Travis is to be forced into retirement contrary to the contract on which he was hired in 2005.
As we understand the situation, Professor Lappin was informed earlier this week of compulsory redundancy on the basis of KCL ‘divesting itself of computational linguistics’. This is despite the fact that as recently as July 2009 you yourself assured him that neither he nor the Department at large was being targeted for redundancies. We understand that there is no department of computational linguistics to be shut down, and that Prof Lappin and Dr Meyer-Viol are full and integral members of the Philosophy Department. We also understand that contrary to contractual agreements about post-retirement age employment, you have sought to force Prof Travis into retirement without conducting the performance review contractually specified, or giving any grounds for forcing the retirement. We understand that these specific cases are part of a larger pattern of reorganization of Humanities at King’s, where you seek to make 22 academics redundant, and have put all academic staff on notice of potential redundancy.
The King’s Philosophy Department is internationally recognized as excellent, both in research and teaching undergraduate and graduate students. The RAE 2008 confirmed the excellence of this Department. The three members of the Department that you have sought summarily to dismiss are all key elements of the persisting success and excellence of the Department, and the recognition of the excellence of King’s as a whole. We find it amazing that King’s should seek to risk its research excellence by summarily dismissing senior staff in this way. We are concerned not only with the scant regard of academic norms in maintaining a university with any international standing, but also with the reckless manner in which you have sought to deal with individuals and their careers, seemingly without regard for proper procedure; or due concern for individual welfare.
The reorganization of the Humanities School, developed without consultation of the academics affected, seems wilfully to ignore the intellectual strengths and organization of the disciplines within the school. Such a savage reduction of staff numbers through compulsory redundancy removes any appearance of job security for academics at King’s. The best candidates in the humanities will shun the institution; and those of strong standing now in post will all seek to leave. The reorganization will succeed in the aim of making a once great institution manifestly mediocre.
Universities may act on occasion in ways contrary to the general good, or against the core academic purposes of such institutions. They do so only through the decisions and acts of particular individuals. We are in no doubt that in so callously treating Prof Lappin, Dr Meyer-Viol, and Prof Travis you have shown yourself individually responsible for this dreadful state of affairs. We protest strongly at KCL’s action, and at your part in it.
We reiterate our admiration for the King’s Humanities School in general, for the Philosophy Department in particular, and for the three individuals that you have treated so shabbily. We urge you to reconsider your actions and to reinstate all three in the Philosophy Department and we urge you to reconsider your plans for the reorganization of the Humanities School.
UCL Dept of Philosophy
Dr Nadine Elzein, Prof Sebastian Gardner, Prof Marcus Giaquinto, Prof Mark Eli Kalderon, Dr Fiona Leigh, Dr Rory Madden, Prof Michael Martin, Prof Véronique Munoz-Dardé, Dr Lucy O’Brien,
Prof Michael Otsuka, Prof Christopher Peacocke, FBA, Dr Sarah Richmond, Prof Paul Snowdon, Dr Tom Stern, Prof Jonathan Wolff, Dr José Zalabardo, Dr Arnold Zuboff
UCL Division of Psychology & Language Sciences
Dr Klaus Abels, Dr Richard Breheny, Prof Robyn Carston, Prof Nick Chater, Dr Nathan Klinedinst, Dr Hans van der Koot, Prof Ad Neeleman, Dr Nausicaa Pouscoulous, Prof Deirdre Wilson, FBA
SOAS Dept of the Cultures and Languages of Near and Middle East
Prof Colin Shindler
Institute of Education Dept of Psychology and Human Development
Dr Matthew Saxton
University of Manchester Dept of Philosophy
Eve Garrard [TOP]
Open Letter to Prof. Andrew J.I. Jones
Head of Department
Department of Computer Science
King's College London
Copied to:
Professor Rick Trainor, Principal of King's College London
Professor Keith Hoggart, Vice-Principal (Arts & Sciences)
Mr. Chris Mottershead, Vice-Principal (Research & Innovation) and Head of School of Physical Sciences and Engineering
Dear Professor Jones,
It is with great sadness that we have heard the news regarding the planned forced redundancies in the Department of Computer Science. We are particularly upset by the fact that it appears that the Group of Logic, Language and Computation (GLLC) has been singled out to bear the brunt of these cuts. We, the PhD graduates of the GLLC of the years 2002-2007, are writing to you to express our indignation and to urge you to reconsider your actions concerning this matter.
For over a decade, the GLLC has enjoyed a stellar international reputation and it has provided us with an outstanding research and educational environment to kick-start our careers. We have found that a PhD from KCL-GLLC can open many doors. Most of us have chosen to pursue an academic career and have obtained attractive positions at top universities around the world. Others have found that the qualifications we gained during our PhD studies have prepared us equally well for rewarding jobs in the City of London. Through its graduates, the GLLC will continue to have a strong impact on academia around the globe for some time to come. No other research group at the Department of Computer Science has been able to achieve the same kind of success in terms of graduate training.
We find it deplorable that this great tradition seems set to come to a sorry end. The recently announced cuts are of course just the latest episode in a series of major upsets. First, it is incomprehensible to us how the Department managed to reach a situation where it lost Professor Michael Zakharyaschev to Birkbeck in 2005 and Professor David Makinson to the LSE in 2006, both of them scholars of the very highest distinction. Second, it clearly would have been in the interest of Computer Science to do everything in their power to keep the equally distinguished Professor Shalom Lappin, who eventually left for the Philosophy Department in 2005. The latest plans to further diminish the group will effectively finish off the very successful line of research in Logic, Language and Computation at King's. It is hard to understand how this could be part of any meaningful managerial strategy, even in the light of the current financial difficulties.
To conclude, we believe that closing down research into Logic, Language and Computation at King's is a major mistake. It will seriously harm the reputation of the College and of the departments involved for a very long time to come. As the Head of Department for Computer Science, we urge you to do your utmost to reverse these decisions.
Sincerely yours,
The PhD Graduates of the Group of Logic, Language and Computation
at the Department of Computer Science, King's College London, 2002-2007
Dr. Stefan Schlobach (PhD, KCL-GLLC, 2002)
Assistant Professor
Department of Computer Science, VU University Amsterdam
Dr. Ulle Endriss (PhD, KCL-GLLC, 2003)
Assistant Professor
Institute for Logic, Language and Computation, University of Amsterdam
Dr. George Metcalfe (PhD, KCL-GLLC, 2004)
Assistant Professor
Mathematical Institute, University of Berne
Dr. Matthew Purver (PhD, KCL-GLLC, 2004)
Lecturer
Department of Computer Science, Queen Mary, University of London
Dr. Roman Kontchakov (PhD, KCL-GLLC, 2004)
Research Fellow
Department of Computer Science and Information Systems, Birkbeck College
Dr. David Gabelaia (PhD, KCL-GLLC, 2005)
Research Fellow
Razmadze Mathematical Institute, Tbilisi
Dr. Christian Ebert (PhD, KCL-GLLC, 2005)
Lecturer
Department of Linguistics, University of Tuebingen
Dr. Leif Arda Nielsen (PhD, KCL-GLLC, 2005)
Consultant
Accenture, London
Dr. Corinna Elsenbroich (PhD, KCL-GLLC, 2005)
Research Fellow
Department of Sociology, University of Surrey
Dr. Raquel Fernandez (PhD, KCL-GLLC, 2006)
Research Fellow
Institute for Logic, Language and Computation, University of Amsterdam
Dr. Vladimir Aleksic (PhD, KCL-GLLC, 2006)
Statistical Arbitrage Trader
JPMorgan Chase, London
Dr. Zoran Macura (PhD KCL-GLLC, 2007)
Research Fellow
Centre for Robotics and Neural Systems, University of Plymouth
Dr. Yo Sato (PhD KCL-GLLC, 2007)
Research Fellow
Science and Technology Research Institute, University of Hertfordshire [TOP]
International Letter of Protest [return to contents]
Dear Prof Hoggart, Prof Palmowski, and Prof Trainor,
We the 335 undersigned computer scientists, linguists, mathematicians, philosophers, psychologists, and cognitive scientists are writing to protest against the recently announced plans to target Dr. Jonathan Ginzburg, Prof Shalom Lappin, and Dr. Wilfried Meyer-Viol for redundancy, and to force Prof Charles Travis into retirement despite contractual obligations for renewal. If carried out, these plans will permanently damage KCL's reputation as a center of excellence in the cognitive sciences, and they will have major and lasting negative repercussions for recruiting in other areas as well.
We are told that KCL is "divesting itself of computational linguistics".
This is a puzzling move for any major institution of higher education.
Computational linguistics has never been more vital in industry, it is an increasingly important component of liberal arts education, and its ideas and innovations will help drive science and technology in the 21st century. Schools that do not embrace this will be left behind. Throughout the world, the hiring trends are clear: departments across the humanities and social sciences hire more computationally-oriented language specialists each year.
Even if KCL is committed to its intellectual downsizing plan, it makes no sense to target Dr. Ginzburg, Prof Lappin, or Dr. Meyer-Viol as part of this plan. None of them can be narrowly categorized as computational linguists. Each has made central and enduring contributions in many areas of linguistics, philosophy, and mathematical logic. The targeting of Professor Travis for redundancy is even more puzzling, since no reasons (not even confused and inaccurate ones) seem to have been given for this decision.
Dismissing senior researchers held in such high esteem by their peers will be disastrous for KCL's international reputation. In addition, all the reports we have received indicate that the people targeted were misled before these events and that some have been treated dishonorably since. We are aghast. These actions are transparently contrary to KCL's long-term interests.
In closing, we would like to emphasize how deeply we admire the KCL Departments of Philosophy and Computer Science, and Dr. Ginzburg, Prof Lappin, Dr. Meyer-Viol, and Prof Travis in particular.
We urge you, in the strongest possible terms, to reconsider your plans.
Sincerely,
Thomas Wasow
Clarence Irving Lewis Professor of Philosophy, and Chair, Department of Linguistics, Stanford University
Ray Jackendoff
Seth Merrin Professor of Philosophy and Co-Director, Center for Cognitive Studies, Tufts University Past President, Linguistic Society of America and Past President, Society for Philosophy and Psychology Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences; Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science
Joan Bresnan
Sadie Dernham Patek Professor Emerita in Humanities and Senior Researcher, Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford University, Fellow and former President of the Linguistic Society of America, Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Edward L. Keenan
Distinguished Professor
University of California at Los Angeles
(former Fellow of King's College, Cambridge 1970 - 74)
Laurence Horn
Professor, Department of Linguistics and Deparment of Philosophy, Yale University
Gennaro Chierchia
Hass Foundations Professor of Linguistics, and Chair, Department of Linguistics, Harvard University
Maria Polinsky
Department of Linguistics, Harvard University
Barbara H. Partee
Distinguished University Professor Emerita of Linguistics and Philosophy, University of Massachusetts Amherst Fellow and former President of the Linguistic Society of America, Member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences and National Academy of Sciences
Rose-Marie Déchaine
Department of Linguistics, University of British Columbia
Vasek Chvatal
Canada Research Chair in Combinatorial Optimization Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering Concordia University, Montreal
Timothy Williamson FBA FRSE FHMAAAS
Wykeham Professor of Logic
University of Oxford
Matthew Stone
Associate Professor, Department of Computer Science and Center for Cognitive Science, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey matthew.stone@rutgers.edu
Jonathan Cohen
Department of Philosophy, University of California, San Diego
Christopher Potts
Associate Professor, Department of Linguistics, Stanford University
Ivano Caponigro,
Department of Linguistics, University of California, San Diego
Andrew Kehler
Professor and Chair, Department of Linguistics, University of California, San Diego
David Beaver
Department of Linguistics, Department of Philosophy, and Director of Cognitive Science, The University of Texas at Austin
Anna Szabolcsi
Professor, Department of Linguistics, New York University
Yael Sharvit
Department of Linguistics, University of Connecticut
Kent Bach
Professor of Philosophy (emeritus), San Francisco State University
Judith Tonhauser
Assistant Professor of Linguistics, The Ohio State University
Farrell Ackerman,
Professor, Dept. of Linguistics, University of California, San Diego Prospective Director, Human Development Program, University of California, San Diego
Ash Asudeh
Institute of Cognitive Science & School of Linguistics and Language Studies, Carleton University
Ida Toivonen
Institute of Cognitive Science & School of Linguistics and Language Studies, Carleton University
Chris Barker
Professor, Department of Linguistics, New York University
Jon Gajewski
Department of Linguistics, University of Connecticut
Roger Levy
Department of Linguistics & Center for Research in Language, University of California at San Diego
Andrew Brook
Chancellor's Professor of Philosophy and Cognitive Science, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada
John Beavers
Assistant Professor, Department of Linguistics, The University of Texas at Austin
Paul M. Postal
Department of Linguistics, New York University, New York, New York
Jonathan David Bobaljik
Professor, Department of Linguistics, University of Connecticut
Masako Hirotani
School of Linguistics and Language Studies & Institute of Cognitive Science, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada
Craige Roberts
Professor, Department of Linguistics; Adjunct Professor, Department of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio
Philippe Schlenker
Directeur de Recherche, Institut Jean-Nicod, CNRS; Global Distinguished Professor, New York University
Victor Caston
Professor of Philosophy & Classical Studies, University of Michigan
Shana Poplack
Distinguished University Professor and Canada Research Chair in Linguistics, University of Ottawa Fellow, Royal Society of Canada; Fellow, Linguistic Society of America
Eric Bakovic
Associate Professor, Linguistics Department, University of California, San Diego
Robert D. Levine
Professor, Department of Linguistics, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio
Peter W. Culicover
Humanities Distinguished Professor of Linguistics, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio
Andrew Koontz-Garboden
Lecturer in Linguistics, School of Languages, Linguistics, and Cultures, The University of Manchester
Ivan A. Sag
Sadie Dernham Patek Professor in Humanities, Professor of Linguistics and Symbolic Systems. Stanford University Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences
James Pustejovsky
TJX/Feldberg Chair of Computer Science, Department of Computer Science, Chair of Language and Linguistics Program, Director of Laboratory for Language and Computation, Brandeis University
Mark Richard
Lenore Stern Professor in the Humanities and Social Sciences, Philosophy, Tufts University
Ann Stuart Laubstein
Carleton University Linguistics and Cognitive Science
Lev Blumenfeld
School of Linguistics and Language Studies & Institute of Cognitive Science, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada
Dominique Sportiche
Professor, Department of Linguistics, UCLA Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris.
Institut Jean Nicod, CNRS.
Mark MacLeod
Institute of Cognitive Science, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada
Kai von Fintel
Professor, Department of Linguistics & Philosophy, MIT Associate Dean, School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, MIT
Alex Byrne
Professor, Department of Linguistics & Philosophy, MIT
Donca Steriade
Professor of Linguistics, MIT
Norvin Richards
Professor, Department of Linguistics & Philosophy, MIT
Danny Fox
Professor, Department of Linguistics & Philosophy, MIT
Chung-chieh Shan
Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science and Center for Cognitive Science, Rutgers University
Yosef Grodzinsky
Professor and Canada Research Chair in Neurolinguistics, Department of Linguistics, McGill University
David Pesetsky
Ferrari P. Ward Professor of Modern Languages & Linguistics, MacVicar Faculty Fellow, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Barry Schein
Associate Professor of Linguistics, University of Southern California
Eric Swanson
Assistant Professor of Philosophy, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Sarah Moss
Assistant Professor of Philosophy, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Paul Kiparsky
Robert M. and Anne T. Bass Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences Stanford University
Edward Gibson
Professor, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT
Jason Baldridge
Department of Linguistics, The University of Texas at Austin
Elizabeth Closs Traugott
Professor, Departments of Linguistics and English, Stanford University Corresponding Fellow, British Academy
Richard P. Meier
Professor & Chair, Department of Linguistics, The University of Texas at Austin
Stephen Yablo
Professor, Department of Linguistics & Philosophy, MIT
Christopher Kennedy
Professor and Chair, University of Chicago
Cleo Condoravdi
Palo Alto Research Center
Jessica Rett
Assistant Professor, Department of Linguistics, UCLA
Jason Merchant
Associate professor, Department of Linguistics, University of Chicago
Anastasia Giannakidou
Professor, Department of Linguistics, University of Chicago
Chris Brew
Associate Professor, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, and Department of Linguistics, The Ohio State University
Luis Alonso-Ovalle
Assistant Professor, Department of Hispanic Studies, University of Massachusetts Boston
Sylvain Bromberger
Professor Emeritus, Department of Linguistics and Philosophy, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Brian D. Joseph
Distinguished University Professor of Linguistics & The Kenneth E. Naylor Professor of South Slavic Linguistics, The Ohio State University
Michael White
Department of Linguistics, The Ohio State University
Julia Hockenmaier,
Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Richard Sproat
Professor, Division of Biomedical Computer Science, Oregon Health & Science University
Edit Doron
Professor, Linguistics Department, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem President of the Israel Association for Theoretical Linguistics
Veneeta Dayal
Professor, Department of Linguistics
Rutgers University
Eve V. Clark
Richard W. Lyman Professor in the Humanities & Professor of Linguistics Stanford University
Daniel Büring
Professor of Linguistics, University of California, Los Angeles
Irene Heim
Professor of Linguistics and Department Head of Linguistics and Philosophy Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Anita Mittwoch
Associate Professor of Linguistics Emerita, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Stefan Müller
Professor of German Language and General Linguistics, Freie Universität Berlin
Maria Bittner
Professor, Department of Linguistics, Rutgers University, New Brunswick NJ
Ariel Cohen
Senior Lecturer, Head of Dept. of Foreign Literatures and Linguistics, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Alex Lascarides,
Reader, School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh
Alexander Grosu
Professor Emeritus of Linguistics, Tel Aviv University
Tista Bagchi
Professor and Head, Department of Linguistics, University of Delhi
Malka Rappaport Hovav
Professor Department of Linguistics, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Head, School of Language Sciences
Nomi Erteschik-Shir
Professor Department of Foreign Literatures & Linguistics, Ben-Gurion University
Ken Safir
Professor II of Linguistics, Rutgers University
Raquel Fernandez Rovira
Research Fellow, Institute for Logic, Language & Computation, University of Amsterdam
Ashwini Deo
Department of Linguistics, Yale University
Shigeto Kawahara
Department of Linguistics, Rutgers University
Rajesh Bhatt
Department of Linguistics, University of Massachusetts at Amherst
Josh Dever
Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Texas at Austin
Jairo Nunes
Associate Professor, Department of Linguistics, University of São Paulo
Sarah G. Thomason
William J. Gedney Collegiate Professor of Linguistics, University of Michigan, Fellow and Immediate Past President, Linguistic Society of America, and Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science
Katrin Erk
Department of Linguistics, The University of Texas at Austin
Hedde Zeijlstra
Department of (Dutch) Linguistics, University of Amsterdam
Lisa L.S. Cheng
Department of Linguistics, Leiden University
Wynn Chao
Department of Linguistics, SOAS, University of London
Emmon W. Bach
Edward Sapir Professor of Linguistics emeritus The University of Massachusetts, Amherst Fellow and Former President, Linguistic Society of America
Jeffrey C. King
Professor of Philosophy, Rutgers University
Brady Clark
Department of Linguistics, Northwestern University
Molly Diesing
Department of Linguistics, Cornell University
Satoshi Tomioka
Department of Linguistics and Cognitive Science, University of Delaware
Arild Hestvik
Department of Linguistics and Cognitive Science, University of Delaware
Peter Sells
Professor and Chair of Linguistics, School of Oriental and African Studies University of London
Liliana Sanchez
Department of Spanish and Portuguese, Rutgers University
William McClure
Program in Linguistics, Graduate Center of the City University of New York
Paul de Lacy
Associate Professor, Department of Linguistics, Rutgers University
Edward Flemming
Associate Professor, Department of Linguistics and Philosophy, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Daniela Isac
Associate Professor of Linguistics, Concordia University, Montreal
Charles Reiss
Professor of Linguistics, Concordia University, Montreal
David Adger
Professor of Linguistics, Queen Mary, University of London
James McGilvray
Department of Philosophy, McGill University
William Idsardi
Department of Linguistics, University of Maryland at College Park
Marie Labelle
Professor of linguistics, Universite du Quebec a Montreal
Stephen Clark
Senior Lecturer, University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory
Sally McConnell-Ginet
Professor Emerita, Linguistics, Cornell University Past President and Fellow, Linguistic Society of America Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science
David O. Brink
Professor of Philosophy, University of California, San Diego
Wayne O'Neil
Professor of Linguistics, Department of Linguistics and Philosophy Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Malvina Nissim
Assistant Professor, Department of Linguistics and Oriental Studies, University of Bologna
Sally Haslanger
Professor of Philosophy
Director, Women's and Gender Studies Program Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Mic hael Wagner
Department of Linguistics. McGill University
Gert Webelhuth
University of Frankfurt
Johan Bos
University of Rome "La Sapienza", Dept of Computer Science
Helene St. Leger
Department of Linguistics, Concordia University, Montreal
Ann Copestake
Reader in Computational Linguistics, University of Cambridge
Claire Gardent
Directrice de recherche CNRS, Nancy (France)
Stanley Peters
Department of Linguistics, and Center for the Study of Language ... and Information, Stanford University
Sam Cumming
Assistant Professor, Philosophy Department, UCLA
Junko Shimoyama
Assistant Professor, Department of Linguistics, McGill University, Canada
Lisa Travis
Department of Linguistics, McGill University, Montreal
Michael Friesner
Département de linguistique, Université du Québec à Montréal
Jeffrey Heinz
Assistant Professor, Department of Linguistics and Cognitive Science, University of Delaware
Bernhard Schwarz
Associate Professor, Department of Linguistics, McGill University, Montreal, Canada
David Matheson
Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada
Denis Bouchard
Full Professor, Département de linguistique, Université du Québec à Montréal
Michael Gagnon
Department of Linguistics, University of Maryland
Roberta Michnick Golinkoff
School of Education and Department of Psychology and Department of Linguistics and Cognitive Science, University of Delaware
Mariana Damova
Ontotext, Sofia, Bulgaria
Jennifer Saul
Professor of Philosophy, University of Sheffield
Valentine Hacquard
Assistant Professor, Department of Linguistics, University of Maryland
Alexander Williams
Assistant Professor, Departments of Linguistics and Philosophy, University of Maryland
Zachary Jacobson
Senior Mathematician, Health Canada
Nino Grillo
Postdoctoral Researcher, Centro de Linguìstica da Universidade Nova de Lisboa (CLUNL)
Amy Weinberg
Professor, Linguistics and Institute for Advanced Computer Studies, University of Maryland
Professor Reviel Netz
Dept.of Classics and, by courtesy, Philosophy, Stanford University
Debra Satz
Marta Sutton Weeks Professor of Ethics in Society, Professor of Philosophy, and by courtesy, Political Science, Stanford University
Viviane Deprez
Professor
Dept of Linguistics, Rutgers University
Hamida Demirdache
Professor, Departement Sciences du Langage, Université de Nantes
Marie-Therese Vinet
Professor
Linguistics, Université de Sherbrooke
Darryl McAdams
Department of Linguistics, University of Maryland
Renée Lambert-Brétière
Departement de linguistique, Université du Québec à Montréal Honorary member, Research Centre for Linguistic Typology, La Trobe University
Philip Resnik
Dept of Linguistics and Institute for Advanced Computer Studies, University of Maryland
Megan Sutton
Department of Linguistics, University of Maryland
Juan Uriagereka
Dept of Linguistics, University of Maryland
Johannes Jurka
Department of Linguistics, University of Maryland
Helen E Longino
Clarence Irving Lewis Professor and Chair, Department of Philosophy Stanford University
Thomas Ede Zimmermann
Professor of formal semantics,
Goethe University Frankfurt
Kenshi Funakoshi
Department of Linguistics, University of Maryland
R. Lanier Anderson
Associate Professor, Philosophy
Yumi and Yasunori Kaneko Family Fellow in Undergraduate Education Stanford University
Crit Cremers
Department of Linguistics, Universiteit Leiden
Norbert Hornstein (Professor)
Linguistics Department, University of Maryland
Colin Phillips
Professor, Linguistics, Neuroscience & Cognitive Science, University of Maryland
Roberto G. de Almeida
Associate Professor
Department of Psychology
Concordia University, Montreal
Rega Wood (Research Professor)
Department of Philosophy, Stanford University Stanford, California
Elan Dresher
Professor, Department of Linguistics, University of Toronto
David Chalmers
Distinguished Professor of Philosophy
Australian National University
Shari Speer
Professor, Department of Linguistics, Ohio State University
Anne Dagnac
MCF, Université Toulouse 2
Laboratoire Cognition Langues Langage Ergonomie (UMR5263, CNRS/U. Toulouse
2)
Dan Parker
Department of Linguistics, University of Maryland
Hans Kamp
Institute for Computational Linguistics, University of Stuttgart, Visiting Professor in Linguistics and Philosophy, University of Texas at Austin
Graeme Hirst
Professor of Computational Linguistics
University of Toronto
Paul Pietroski
Professor, Departments of Linguistics and Philosophy University of Maryland
Orin Percus
MCF, Département de Sciences du Langage Université de Nantes
Daphna Heller
Assistant Professor, Department of Linguistics University of Toronto
Terje Lohndal
Department of Linguistics, University of Maryland
Keren Rice
University Professor, Department of Linguistics, University of Toronto
Ewan Dunbar
Department of Linguistics
University of Maryland, College Park
Michael Weisberg
Associate Professor of Philosophy
University of Pennsylvania
Louis E. Loeb
Professor of Philosophy
University of Michigan
Alana Johns
Professor, Dept. of Linguistics, University of Toronto
Elizabeth Cowper
Professor, Department of Linguistics, University of Toronto
Yoonjung Kang
Assistant Professor, Linguistics, University of Toronto
Ursula Coope
Professor of Ancient Philosophy
University of Oxford
Richmond H. Thomason
Neslon Professor of Philosophy, Professor of Linguistics and Computer Science University of Michigan
Penelope Eckert
Professor of Linguistics
Stanford University
Virginia Valian
Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Linguistics Hunter College and CUNY Graduate Center
Patricia Balcom
Full Professor
Université de Moncton
Moncton, N.-B.
Bonnie D. Schwartz
Professor, Department of Second Language Studies and Department of Linguistics, University of Hawai`i
Marc A. Moffett
Associate Professor of Philosophy
University of Wyoming
Gideon Rosen
Stuart Professor of Philosophy and
Chair, Council of the Humanities
Princeton University
Hilda Koopman
Distinguished Professor, Department of Linguistics, UCLA
Tad Brennan
Professor
Sage School of Philosophy
Cornell University
And, former Lecturer in Philosophy, King's College, London, from
1992-1996
Stephen Neale
Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Linguistics John H Kornblith Family Chair in the Philosophy of Science and Values CUNY Graduate Center
Raj Singh
Assistant Professor, Institute of Cognitive Science, Carleton University
Jamie Le Tual
Gabriela Caballero
Assistant Professor, University of California, San Diego
Robin Jeshion
Professor, Department of Philosophy
University of California, Riverside
Suzanne Stevenson
Professor, Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto
Kendall Walton
Charles L. Stevenson Collegiate Professor of Philosophy University of Michigan Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Louise Antony
Professor of Philosophy, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Eric McCready
Associate Professor, Department of English Studies Aoyama Gakuin University
Joseph Levine
Professor of Philosophy, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Berit Brogaard
Associate Professor of Philosophy, Department of Philosophy University of Missouri, St. Louis
Iain Martel
Department of Philosophy, University of Toronto
Carl Ginet
Professor of Philosophy Emeritus
Cornell University
Atiqa Hachimi
Assistant Professor, Linguistics, University of Toronto
Verity Harte
Professor of Philosophy and Classics, Yale University Honorary Research Professor, Philosophy Department, King's College London
Sarah-Jane Leslie
Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Princeton University
Mark Johnston
Walter Cerf Professor of Philosophy, Princeton University
Donald Ainslie
Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Philosophy, University of Toronto
Peter Cole
Professor, Department of Linguistics and Cognitive Science, University of Delaware
Kwame Anthony Appiah
Lawrence S. Rockefeller University Professor of Philosophy and the University Center for Human Values Princeton University
Gerald Penn
Chief Scientist, Knowledge Media Design Institute, University of Toronto
Sandeep Prasada
Associate Professor of Psychology, Hunter College, CUNY
Roumyana Pancheva
Associate Professor of Linguistics and Slavic Languages and Literatures University of Southern California
Christopher Tancredi
Associate Professor, The Keio Institute of Cultural and Linguistic Studies, Keio University, Japan
Hajime Hoji
Associate Professor of Linguistics and East Asian Languages and Literatures University of Southern California
Louis Goldstein
Professor, University of Southern California
Sophia A. Malamud
Assistant Professor of Language and Linguistics Brandeis University
Yasunari Harada
Professor, Faculty of Law, Waseda University
Ryo Otoguro
Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, Waseda University
Makoto Kanazawa
Associate Professor, National Institute of Informatics, Tokyo, Japan
Chris Tillman
Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy, University of Manitoba
Ofra Magidor
CUF lecturer and tutorial fellow in Philosophy, University of Oxford and Balliol College
Shuichi Yatabe
Associate Professor, Department of Language and Information Sciences University of Tokyo
Hagit Borer
Professor of Linguistics,
University of Southern California
Jeffrey Lidz
Associate Professor Dept of Linguistics
University of Maryland
Sachiko Shudo
Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, Waseda University
Yukio Otsu
Professor, Institute of Cultural and Linguistic Studies, Keio University, Tokyo, Japan
Samuel C. Rickless
Professor, Department of Philosophy
University of California, San Diego
Marianne Desmets
Associate Professor (Maître de conférences) Dept of Linguistics University of Paris Ouest , France
Jochen Zeller
Associate Professor, Dept of Linguistics University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
Olivier Bonami
Associate professor (MCF) of Linguistics Universite Paris-Sorbonne & Institut Universitaire de France
Sophie Wauquier
Professor, Dept of Linguistics
University of Paris 8, France
Ned Block
Silver Professor, Departments of Philosophy and Psychology and Center for Neural Science New York University
Jean Lowenstamm
Professor of Linguistics
Université Paris Diderot
Noël Nguyen
Professor in Speech and Language Sciences Université de Provence, France
Jesse Tseng
CNRS Research Associate
University of Toulouse, France
Ora Matushansky
CNRS and UiL OTS Research Associate
Utrecht University, The Netherlands
Edy Veneziano
Professor, Institute of Psychology, University Paris Descartes Paris, France
Nigel Vincent, FBA
Mont Follick Professor of Comparative Philology, University of Manchester
Jenny Doetjes
Associate professor, Leiden University
Claire Beyssade
Chargée de recherche, Institut Jean Nicod, CNRS, Paris
Myriam Uribe-Etxebarria
Profesora Agregada
Department of Linguistics and Basque Studies, Univesrity of the Basque Country
Alain Kihm
Directeur de recherche CNRS
Directeur du Laboratoire de Linguistique formelle (LLF), Paris
Paul Bennett
Linguistics and English Language
University of Manchester
Urtzi Etxeberria
Chargé de Recherche, IKER-CNRS
Elisabeth DELAIS-ROUSSARIE
Directeur de Recherche CNRS, Laboratoire de Linguistique Formelle, Paris
Jacques Jayez
Professeur de Sémantique,
Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon and Laboratoire Langage, Cerveau, Cognition , CNRS
Ivana Kruijff-Korbayova
Dept. of Computaitonal Linguistics, Saarland University and German Center for Artificial Intellingence (DFKI), Saarbruecken
Brenda Laca
Professor of Linguistics
Université Paris 8- CNRS UMR 7023 Structures formelles du langage
Aritz Irurtzun
Department of Linguistics and Basque Studies, University of the Basque Country
Joan Busquets
McF, Sciences du Langage, Université Bordeaux-3 CLLE-ERSS UMR 5263
Anne Abeillé
Professor
Department of linguistics
University Paris 7
Patrick Caudal
Chargé de recherche
Laboratoire de Linguistique Formelle
CNRS & University Paris-Diderot
Ricardo Gómez
Profesor Titular
Department of Linguistics and Basque Studies, Univesrity of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU)
Norberto Moreno Quiben
Department of Hispanic Philology
Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha
Department of Grammar
Real Academia Española (RAE)
Kleanthes K. Grohmann, Associate Professor Dept. of English Studies, University of Cyprus
75 Kallipoleos, 1678 Nicosia, Cyprus
Robin Cooper, FBA
Professor of Computational Linguistics
Director of Swedish National Graduate School of Language Technology University of Gothenburg Member of the Academia Europaea Fellow of The Royal Society of Arts and Sciences in Gothenburg
Bernard Fradin
Directeur de recherche
Laboratoire de Linguistique Formelle
CNRS & Université Paris-Diderot
Joseph Emonds
Guest Professor of Linguistics
University of Vienna
Vienna Austria
Also: Professor of Linguistics and English Language,,University of Durham,
1992-2000 now Emeritus
Guest Research, Spanish Ministry of Eduction, 2008 Professor of Linguistics, Kobe-Shoin University, Kobe, Japan, 2000-2007 Professor of Linguistics, University of Washington, 1980-1991 Former Fellow, Stanford Center for Behavioral Sciences, Guggenheim Foundation Professor of Linguistics, University of Paris, 1970, 1977, 1989
Julia Sallabank
Department of Linguistics, SOAS, University of London
Julia Sallabank
Department of Linguistics, SOAS, London
Inbal Arnon
Lecturer in Linguistics, School of Languages, Linguistics, and Cultures, The University of Manchester
Isabelle Simatos
Maître de Conférences, Linguistics
University Paris 13
Stanley Dubinsky
Professor of Linguistics
University of South Carolina
Columbia, SC 29208
dubinsky@sc.edu
Dory Scaltsas
Professor of Ancient Philosophy, Edinburgh University
Louise McNally
Professor of Linguistics and Vice Rector for Research, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain
Colin Matheson
Senior Research Fellow
University of Edinburgh
Julian Kiverstein
Teaching Fellow
University of Edinburgh
Danièle Godard
Senior Researcher, CNRS, Université Paris-Diderot
David McCarthy
Reader in Philosophy, University of Edinburgh
Steve Renals
Professor of Speech Technology
University of Edinburgh
Dr Ricardo Bermúdez-Otero
Senior Lecturer in Linguistics and English Language University of Manchester
Nicole Rivière
Maitre de Conférences, Sciences du Langage Université Paris-Diderot (Paris 7)
Detmar Meurers
Professor of Computational Linguistics
Seminar für Sprachwissenschaft
Universität Tübingen
dm@sfs.uni-tuebingen.de
Bjarne Ã~rsnes
Free University of Berlin
Amit Almor
Associate Professor
Psychology Department & Linguistics Program University of South Carolina
Adele Goldberg
Professor of Humanities
Princeton University
Jonathan Berg
University of Haifa
Senior Lecturer in Philosophy
Gerhard Jäger
Professor, Department of Linguistics, University of Tübingen
Rodger Kibble
Lecturer in Computer Science
Department of Computing, Goldsmiths University of London
Gemma Boleda
Post-doc researcher
Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya
Berit Gehrke
Postdoctoral researcher
Department of Translation and Language Sciences Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona
Zlatka Guentchéva
Directrice de recherche au CNRS
Paris, France
Robert Truswell
British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow,
Linguistics and English Language, University of Edinburgh
Sali Tagliamonte
Graduate Coordinator and Associate Chair Department of Linguistics University of Toronto
Alexander George
Professor
Department of Philosophy
Amherst College
Amherst, MA 01002
Dr Tom Bristow
Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow
Department of English Literature
University of Edinburgh
Christian Ebert
Assistant Professor
Department of Linguistics
University of Tuebingen
Hannes Rieser
Em. Professor of Semantics and Pragmatics Bielefeld University Germany
Genoveva Marti
Research Professor
ICREA and Universitat de Barcelona
Raffaella Bernardi
Researcher,
Faculty of Computer Science,
Free University of Bozen-Bolzano,
Italy
Marcus Kracht
Professor for Theoretical Computational Linguistics Bielefeld University Germany
Marie Nilsenova
Assistant Professor
Department of Communication and Information Sciences Tilburg University The Netherlands
Josep M. Fontana
Associate Professor
Department of Translation and Language Sciences Universitat Pompeu Fabra Barcelona, Spain
Howard Gregory
Former Lecturer
Department of English Linguistics
University of Göttingen
Germany
John Whitman
Chair
Department of Linguistics
Cornell University
Max Kölbel (PhD in Philosophy from KCL) ICREA Research Professor LOGOS/Universitat de Barcelona max.kolbel@ub.edu
Natalie Gold
Lecturer in Philosophy, University of Edinburgh
D. Gregory MacIsaac
Assistant Professor of Humanities (Philosophy) College of the Humanities at Carleton University Ottawa, ON, Canada
Michael Weiss
Professor
Department of Linguistics
Cornell University
Benjamin Lyngfelt
Associate Professor
Dept. of Swedish
University of Gothenburg
Fritz Hamm
Seminar für Sprachwissenschaft
Universität Tübingen
Claudia Borgnovo
Associate Professor
Dept. of linguistics
Université Laval
Graham Katz
Assistant Professor, Department of Linguistics Georgetown University
Anne Bezuidenhout
Philosophy & Linguistics
University of South Carolina
Columbia, SC
USA
Amalia Arvaniti
Associate Professor
University of California, San Diego
Edward Finegan
Professor of Linguistics and Law
University of Southern California
Sandra Kuebler
Indiana University
Department of Linguistics
Memorial Hall 322
1021 E 3rd St.
Bloomington IN 47405
USA
Josep Quer
ICREA Research Professor, Departament de Traducció i Ciències del Llenguatge Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona Former Professor of Romance Linguistics, University of Amsterdam Fellow of the Catalan Academy of Sciences (Institut d'Estudis Catalans) Vice-president of the Sign Language Linguistics Society
Itamar Francez
Postdoc, Dept. of Linguistics,
University of Chicago.
John Payne
Professor of Linguistics, University of Manchester
Jelena Krivokapic
Department of Linguistics, Yale University
Robert Frank
Professor of Linguistics, Yale University
Peter Trudgill FBA
Adjunct Prof. of Sociolinguistics, Agder Univ., N Adjunct Prof., RCLT, La Trobe Univ., AU Prof. Emeritus of Eng. Linguistics, Fribourg Univ, CH Hon. Prof. of Sociolinguistics, UEA, Norwich, UK
Maria Mercedes Pinango
Associate Professor
Department of Linguistics, Psychology
and Interdepartmental Neuroscience Program Yale University
William Marslen-Wilson FBA
Director MRC Cognition and Brain Science Unit, Cambridge Honorary Professor of Language and Cognition, University of Cambridge
Geoffrey Khan
Professor of Semitic Philology
University of Cambridge
Nicholas Sims-Williams FBA
formerly Research Professor of Iranian and Central Asian Studies, SOAS, University of London
Clive Holes FBA
Professor for the Study of the Contemporary Arab World University of Oxford
Stephen Pulman FBA
Professor of Computational Linguistics
University of Oxford Computing Laboratory
Caroline Heycock
Professor of Syntax
University of Edinburgh
Claude Rivière
Maître de conférences (English linguistics) Université Paris 7 Denis-Diderot
George Hewitt FBA
Professor of Caucasian Languages,
SOAS, London WC1H 0XG
Chris H Reintges
CNRS/LLF/UMR7110 & University Paris 7
Jean-Pierre Desclés
Professeur, Linguistique et informatique Université de Paris-Sorbonne
Moshé Machover
Department of Philosophy, KingâEUR(tm)s College, London
Anna Morpurgo Davies DBE, FBA
Diebold Professor Emeritus of Comparative Philology University of Oxford
John Perry
Professor, Philosophy, UC Riverside
Professor Emeritus, Philosophy, Stanford
Annie Zaenen
Palo Alto Research Center and Consulting Professor of Linguistics, Stanford University
Lisa Matthewson
Department of Linguistics, University of British Columbia [TOP]
Steven Pinker's Letter of Protest [return to contents]
Dear Vice Principal Hoggart,
Together with scientists and scholars in several countries, I am shocked at the decision
at King’s College to fire several of its distinguished and productive scholars (I will
avoid the Orwellian term “compulsory redundancy”). I am writing about the one I
know best, Shalom Lappin, but I understand that his colleagues who have also been
fired are as distinguished.
Lappin is a brilliant computational linguist and philosopher. The combination of
disciplines is no anomaly—philosophy today blends with many scientific disciplines,
including neuroscience, cognitive science, and evolutionary biology. Lappin has made
contributions to some of the most active and rigorous areas in contemporary
philosophy, including intensional logic and the philosophy of language and mind.
Lappin’s research in computational linguistics is even more central to contemporary
scholarly and scientific life. His papers and his forthcoming book on language and
computation combine technical rigor with wide interdisciplinary scope, and have
received a great deal of respectful attention. The importance of the field cannot be
overstated. Speech and language understanding are among the next frontiers in the
world of computing; the PC or laptop that you will be using in five years will bear the
marks of research in Lappin’s area. So will the very practice of science, as more and
more fields cope with the torrent of scientific publication by using data‐mining
techniques that automatically understand the text in tens of thousands of publications.
One of the reasons that in the past progress in this field has been so halting is the lack of
a deep understanding of the mathematical and logical problems inherent in
understanding language. That is the foundational work in which Lappin is a major
contributor.
Lappin is also an articulate commentator of politics in academia, where his writings are
a breath of fresh air: guided by reason and independent analysis rather than passion
and political crusading.
To give the boot to a scholar like Lappin is an act of madness for an institution that,
according to your website, aims to be a “prestigious university” offering “an
intellectually rigorous environment supported by welcoming and caring traditions.” I
hope that you will reconsider this rash and self‐damaging action.
Sincerely,
Steve Pinker [TOP]
Edward Keenan's Letter of Protest [return to contents]
As a Distinguished Professor of Linguistics at UCLA and a former Fellow of King's College Cambridge I am both astonished and dismayed at your decision to make redundant a variety of leading scholars in my field -- Shalom Lappin, Jonathan Ginzburg (apparently), Ruth Kempson, and others. I have known Shalom and followed his work for some 25 years -- he is one of the leaders in the growing area that unites theoretical linguistics, formal semantics, logic, information sciences and cognitive science. This integration is very influential both within universities and in private institutions attached to universities -- ILLC (Institute for Language, Logic and Communication at the University of Amsterdam; CSLI (Center for the Study of Language and Information) at Stanford, not to mention national research agencies (CNRS in France and Italy, the Max Planck Institute in Germany,...). My own contacts with Shalom have been in the domain of linguistic and semantics. His book on The Handbook of Contemporary Semantic Theory is one of the standard references in the field. He will be a keynote speaker at ESSLLI (European Suymmer School for Language, Logic and Information) this summer in Copenhagen and give a course on his recent work at NASSLLI (North Americal Summer School in Language, Logic and Information at the University of Indiana this summer). What sort of institution lops off the heads of its leading figures? Especially in areas that are growing internationally? You are killing an area in which you are among the leaders -- perhaps not THE leader, but clearly among the leaders (Lappin, Ginzburg, Kempson -- these are people whose work I buy and read -- and the journal they started (ROLC: Research on Language and Computation) is one I read and publish in. In short, you are cutting out excellence is a way that makes no sense to me. British universities, tolerate, even encourage, idiosyncracies more than American universties, but they also place tremendous pressure on high quality research. No one cares that I climb to the top of the bell tower barefoot to feed the pigeons every day as long as I am a leader in my field. Why are you running against this grain? I fear that Pullum's remark in the Leiter Blog is well taken: There is more than meets the eye in these redundancies -- Shalom Lappin is simply not primarily a computationalist. His center of research is theoretical linguistics/formal semantics/cognitive science. This has, to be sure, involved some theoretical computational work. With the retention policies you are introducing what sort of faculty will you attract? I'm betting just those that can't find jobs elsewhere, and they will be a bit of a laughing stock.
Edward L. Keenan,
Distinguished Professor Dept of Linguistics,
UCLA Fellow:
American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellow:
American Association for the Advancement of Science [TOP]
James Higginbotham's Letter of Protest [return to contents]
Professor Jan Palmowski, Head of Humanities, KCL Professor Rick Trainor, Principal, KCL Professor Keith Hoggart, Vice Principal, KCL
Dear Professors Palmowski, Trainor, and Hoggart:
A few days ago I received a longish note with enclosures from the Chair of Section H4 (Linguistics and Philology) of the British Academy outlining the decision by Humanities in King's College London to revoke the contract of Professor Charles Travis, and to declare Professor Shalom Lappin's post redundant as of September. I have subsequently been in communication with him and others, including Professors Travis and Lappin, about the matter. I write this note by way of protest, not only against this particular decision, but also similar decisions that I understand have been made to make redundant or otherwise sever relations with other Professors at King's.
It happens that I know both Professor Travis and Professor Lappin pretty well in a professional capacity (I do not know Professor Meyer-Viol in Philosophy, who I understand to be in the same situation as Professor Lappin). Professor Travis has for many years been a major figure in the Philosophy of Language, and is especially known for his careful observations on the extraordinarily complex admixture of contextual features of discourse in our everyday speech. Professor Lappin's research straddles Logic, Computer Science, Linguistics, and Philosophy of Language and Linguistics, and he has worked especially hard to bring computer science and linguistic theory into scientific contact. Our connections are not all at a distance: Professor Travis has been my commentator at a couple of professional meetings, and Professor Lappin edited the Blackwell volume on Semantic Theory, to which I contributed an article. We often work in similar areas of Philosophy and Linguistics.
But I do not write just because of professional acquaintance with Professors Travis and Lappin, or protest just on the grounds of their scholarly merits. Rather, from what has been conveyed to me, the proceedings at King's College have without warning threatened to terminate careers that these Professors had every right to believe would continue.
Professor Travis left a tenured Professorship at Northwestern University in Illinois to take up the post at King's. My understanding is that his contract provided for him to continue at King's past the retiring age of 67. Having now reached that age, he is to be terminated. Professor Lappin (who turned down an offer from Hebrew University, Jerusalem on the expectation that his appointment at King's would continue for several years) has been told that since computational linguistics is to be shuttered his services are no longer required.
From what I have been told, the above or similar scenarios are being played out with respect to some 22 posts in the Humanities at King's, in order to save money. I am sure that I need not explain that there are other ways to balance budgets than by sacking Professors.
In my career I have been Professor at Columbia University, MIT, Oxford, and now the University of Southern California. There have been budgetary ups and downs at these institutions, and in fact my own salary, and the salaries of other senior Professors, have been frozen this year because of the recession in the USA. Fortunately, I have never been in an environment where Professors were treated on the order of what is now proposed at King's. I urge you, and the relevant government authorities, to reconsider not only the immediate step you propose, but also the basis of employment upon which the university operates.
Finally, the consequences for university research and teaching of the policy that you intend to implement are obvious. Who would take a job in Britain if such dismissals are possible? And who would not seek to leave Britain for a place (like the USA, but not only there) where they are off the table if not downright illegal?
Yours sincerely,
James Higginbotham
James Higginbotham, FBA
Linda Hilf Chair in Philosophy
Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Linguistics Chair, Department of Linguistics[TOP]
Ian Roberts's Letter of Protest [return to contents]
The Principal and Vice-Principals, Head of Arts and Humanities
King’s College London
January 30, 2010
Sirs:
I am writing to express in the strongest possible terms my absolute shock and outrage at the decision taken by the administration in which you play key roles that "Linguistics would cease as a distinct activity at the School of Arts and Humanities" at KCL. In particular, the treatment meted out to Professor Shalom Lappin and Dr Wilfried Meyer-Viol of the Philosophy Department, on the grounds that "Computational Linguistics would cease as an activity in the School", seems to be shabby, high-handed and unethical. As senior managers at a Russell Group University, charged with upholding standards of educational excellence and with a responsibility to support senior academics in their teaching and research, you should be ashamed of yourselves.
Both the manner and the content of the decision to bring about these redundancies and its implementation have been wholly unsatisfactory: to date, there has been no apparent consultation in coming to this decision. The term "computational linguistics" isn't applicable at all to Dr Meyer-Viol: he is a logician. Though he moved, with Professors Lappin and Kempson, to KCL in 1999 under the banner of creating a Computational Linguistics graduate programme (which was discontinued in 2007), Dr Meyer-Viol has been teaching Logic for the department's Philosophy BA programme ever since his arrival, and in more recent years, by collaborative agreement between the colleges of London University, he has been carrying a normal burden of 75% of the teaching of Logic in the University. As the primary articulator of the formal framework of Dynamic Syntax, his work on tree-growth logic and the epsilon calculus has had particularly rich application areas in work at the formal syntax/semantics interface. In the case of Professor Lappin, his work, as the Section knows, is doing leading work at the interface of Semantics, Syntax, Philosophy of Language and Mind, and Computational Linguistics, work for which he has achieved very considerable international recognition. Moreover, when turning down an offer of a post elsewhere a mere six months ago, Professor Lappin was assured that his position was safe from future cuts. He now faces redundancy, six years from retirement and with inadequate pension. This is an utterly despicable and indefensible way to treat anyone, never mind a senior and respected figure in the field.
There is no evidence that those making this preliminary decision have looked at the way in which these two individuals have contributed at unambiguously high standards of academic excellence to the profile of the broad UK Linguistics research community, or even to their contribution to teaching, research and administration for the Philosophy community of KCL within which they work. The decision that they could be dismissed under this narrow label flies in the face of the internationally recognised contributions that these individuals make to inter-disciplinary work in Linguistics and related disciplines, and has to be seen as one based on totally inadequate ground work, for which the Head of School claims sole responsibility as ratified by a small band of more senior administrators. The arbitrariness of this decision and the cavalier failure to check whether the label chosen as grounds for their dismissal matches the activity which the individuals carry out for the College leaves one breathless: it is wholly unacceptable for university administrators to proceed in this way against academics working at their prime with all due hallmarks of recognition for their contribution to academic research and teaching. It is particularly surprising to see people with interdisciplinary skills and expertise being targeted for dismissal at a time when the importance of interdisciplinarity in opening up new frontiers of knowledge is being emphasised by ALL research funders, national and international, public and private alike. I also note with outrage that, in addition, you have asked Charles Travis, an eminent philosopher of language, to resign, thereby explicitly reneging on a recent contractual agreement.
I believe you may find as a consequence of your ill-considered decisions that there are many people in the academic community in this country who hold to beliefs and standards that run deeper than mere managerial expediency. I urge that you reconsider these outrageous decisions before you come to regret them as deeply as those of us who care for true academic values deplore them.
Yours,
Professor Ian G Roberts, BA MA PhD DLitt FBA MAE [TOP]
Rutger's Department of Philosophy Letter of Protest [return to contents]
Feb. 2, 2010
Professor Jan Palmowski, Head of Humanities, KCL Professor Rick Trainor, Principal, KCL Professor Keith Hoggart, Vice Principal, KCL
Dear Professors Palmowski, Trainor, and Hoggart:
We hereby join the chorus of protest of your actions with regard to the Philosophy Department at King's College and the outrageous treatment they have received from the College. The damage done to academia, to the Department, to the College, and most of all to the specific colleagues involved, is unconscionable. We urge you to reconsider, so as to contain the damage.
Rutgers University Philosophy Department
Rutgers University
New Brunswick, NJ 08901 [TOP]
Letter from Catherine Elgin [return to contents]
Richard Trainor, Principal
King's College
London
Re: Shalom Lappin
Dear Sir,
I am writing to convey my surprise and dismay over your treatment of Shalom Lappin. Professor Lappin is a gifted philosopher who is doing cutting edge research at the intersection of philosophy of language, linguistics, and cognitive science. He is by no means merely or even, I would say, mainly a computational linguist. So the decision to end the program in computational linguistics (which is in itself a bad idea) by no means justifies firing Lappin.
The decision is particularly appalling in view of the fact that less than a year ago Professor Lappin turned down an attractive offer from Hebrew University, having received assurances that his position at King's was not in jeopardy. The termination is unconscionable, not only in light of the practice of presumptive tenure in British universities, but especially in light of this history. It is also imprudent, given that the quality and reputation of the philosophy department will be considerably diminished by his departure. Moreover, Professor Lappin's termination sets such a bad precedent that British academics and people who care about the quality of British universities should be disheartened. If the positions of productive, world-class scholars like Professor Lappin are not secure in British universities, academics in every field should, and no doubt will, seek jobs elsewhere. British students, who cannot be confident that their mentors and teachers will retain their jobs should and will attend universities overseas. Are you quite sure you want to precipitate another British brain drain?
Although I have written about Shalom Lappin, whose work I know best, similar arguments can be made about Dr. Wilfrid Meyer-Viol and Professor Charles Travis. The recent decisions about their employment reflect so badly on King's College that, if they are carried out, it will take many years to restore your credibility and make King's College an attractive option for academics and students.
Yours sincerely,
Catherine Z. Elgin, Ph.D.
Professor of the Philosophy of Education [TOP]
Letter from University of Manchester, University of Cambridge, University of Aberdeen, CUNY, Open University, University of Oxford, Royal Holloway and Bedford, University of London [return to contents]
Dear Professor Palmowski
We the undersigned would like to add our voices to the rising chorus of protest about the treatment by King's College London of three members of its Philosophy department: Professor Shalom Lappin, Dr Wilfried Meyer-Viol, and Professor Charles Travis. The notification, apparently without any warning, of compulsory redundancy or forced retirement for these academics - academics who have been major contributors to the widely-admired success of their Department - has shocked many of their colleagues inside and beyond KCL. Concern about the arbitrariness of these summary dismissals, and about the manifest lack of concern for the welfare of these senior and intellectually eminent members of the profession, is rapidly spreading.
Professor Lappin was assured less than a year ago that neither he nor his Department was being targeted for redundancy, and he made important career choices on the basis of this assurance. Hence, the treatment of him is almost certainly unlawful as well as academically perverse. It is hard to see how any other King's academics can now rely on reassurances provided by the University about the security of their jobs. No doubt they will be inclined to shift to other universities, to the lasting detriment of KCL. Unless these decisions are rescinded, other academics looking at KCL will see an institution that appears to have a lack of concern for consultative procedures, a willingness to provide empty reassurances, and a callous disregard for the welfare of its members and for the law.
We would like to record our strong endorsement of the closing words of an earlier letter of protest to you, from philosophers and other academics at UCL and elsewhere: "We protest strongly at KCL's action, and at your part in it. We reiterate our admiration for the King's Humanities School in general, for the Philosophy Department in particular, and for the three individuals that you have treated so shabbily. We urge you to reconsider your actions and to reinstate all three in the Philosophy Department and we urge you to reconsider your plans for the reorganization of the Humanities School."
Eve Garrard Honorary Research Fellow Department of Philosophy University of Manchester
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UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER
Professor Emeritus Hillel Steiner (Politics)
Professor Emeritus Norman Geras (Politics) Dr Stephen de Wijze (Politics) Dr Jonathan Quong (Politics) Dr Thomas Porter (Politics) Dr Kimberley Brownlee (Politics) Dr Angelia Wilson (Politics) Dr Adrian Blau (Politics) Dr James Pattison (Politics) Dr Mark Reiff (Law) Dr Chris Daly (Philosophy) Dr Joel Smith (Philosophy) Dr Thomas Smith (Philosophy) Professor John O?Neill (Philosophy) Dr Catherine Abell (Philosophy) Mr Harry Lesser (Philosophy) Dr Ann Whittle (Philosophy) Professor Julian Dodd (Philosophy) Dr David Liggins (Philosophy) Dr Graham Stevens (Philosophy) Professor Thomas Uebel (Philosophy) Dr Sean Crawford (Philosophy) Ms Eve Garrard (Philosophy)
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UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE Dr Arif Ahmed (Philosophy) Professor German Berrios (Psychiatry) Professor Simon Blackburn (Philosophy) Dr Alex Broadbent (History & Philosophy of Science) Dr Jeremy Butterfield (Philosophy) Dr Tim Button (Philosophy) Dr Ben Colburn (Philosophy) Professor Tim Crane (Philosophy) Professor Christopher Cullen (Needham Research Institute) Dr Nicholas Denyer (Classics) Dr Paul Dicken (History & Philosophy of Science) Mrs Margrit Edwards (Philosophy) Dr Marina Frasca-Spada (History & Philosophy of Science) Dr Sacha Golob (Philosophy) Professor Jane Heal (Philosophy) Dr Peter Jones (History & Philosophy of Science) Professor Matthew Kramer (Law/Philosophy) Dr Tim Lewens (History & Philosophy of Science) Dr Hallvard Lillehammer (Philosophy) Professor Sir Geoffrey Lloyd (Classics) Dr John Marenbon (Philosophy) Dr Alex Oliver (Philosophy) Dr Serena Olsaretti (Philosophy) Dr Catherine Pickstock (Divinity) Dr Amit Pundik (Law) Professor Michael Redhead (History & Philosophy of Science) Dr Eleanor Robson (History & Philosophy of Science) Professor Simon Schaffer (History & Philosophy of Science) Dr Peter Smith (Philosophy) Dr Tony Street (Divinity) Dr Florian Steinberger (Philosophy) Dr Nicholas Treanor (Philosophy) Dr Robert Wardy (Classics)
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UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN Professor Catherine Wilson (Philosophy)
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CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK Professor Virginia Valian (Psychology)
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OPEN UNIVERSITY Professor Jeremy Gray (Mathematics) Professor James Moore (History)
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OXFORD UNIVERSITY Professor Pietro Corsi (History of Science) Dr Charlotte Werndl (Philosophy)
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ROYAL HOLLOWAY, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON Professor Robert Eaglestone (English) [TOP]
Letter from Francois Recanati [return to contents]
To : Professor Jan Palmowski, Head of Humanities,
KCL Professor Rick Trainor, Principal,
KCL Professor Keith Hoggart, Vice Principal, KCL
Paris, February 2, 2010
Dear Professors Palmowski, Trainor, and Hoggart,
The French academic community, especially in the areas of philosophy and linguistics, is deeply shocked by the recent events that took place at KCL. The KCL professors whose employment is being terminated in such a rude manner are all very well-known in France, and often invited by researchers at our institutions. One of them (C. Travis) has been awarded the medal of College de France, a highly significant distinction. We do not understand what is happening. Presumably, some mistake has been made.
We urge you to reconsider the measures that have been announced.
Yours sincerely,
François Recanati
Director of Institut Jean-Nicod, Directeur de recherche,
CNRS Directeur d’études, EHESS
Arché Professorial Fellow, University of St Andrews
Institut Jean-Nicod Ecole Normale Superieure 29 rue d'Ulm, 75005 Paris, France
email: recanati@ens.fr http://www.institutnicod.org [TOP]
Letter from Italian Philosophers [return to contents]
To: jan.palmowski@kcl.ac.uk principal@kcl.ac.uk keith.hoggart@kcl.ac.uk
We, the undersigned, write to join the many other voices already raised to deplore the decision to decimate the Philosophy Department of King’s College, London. In the absence of any academic, intellectual or disciplinary motivation, the firings of Prof. Lappin and Dr Meyer-Viol, and the unilateral termination of Prof. Travis’ contract constitute an unjustified attack on a highly respected institution, and a senseless waste of human resources for teaching and research in a field where KCL’s excellence is recognised worldwide. We most strongly urge that any steps taken to implement the cuts be reversed to avoid undermining an important structure and further damaging the image of the College and the University.
Signed
Luigi Ruggiu (Full Professor of History of Philosophy, University of Venice Ca’ Foscari and representative for Philosophy with the Italian Government National Committe for the Universities) Elio Franzini (Full Professor of Aesthetics and Dean of the Faculty of Letters, State University of Milan) Michele Di Francesco (Full Professor of Philosophy of Mind, University Vita-Salute San Raffaele, Milan) Andrea Bottani (Full Professor of Theoretical Philosophy and Director of the Department of Letters, Arts and Multimediality, University of Bergamo) Alfredo Paternoster (Associate Professor of Philosophy of Language, University of Bergamo) Maddalena Bonelli (Lecturer in Ancient Philosophy, University of Bergamo) Richard Davies (Lecturer in Theoretical Philosophy, University of Bergamo) Federica Sossi (Lecturer in Aesthetics, University of Bergamo) Paolo Valore (Lecturer in History of Philosophy, State University of Milan) Enrico Lodi (Contract Professor of Spanish Literature, University of Bergamo)
Students of the Faculty of Letters, University of Bergamo: Eleonora Caccia, Andrea Pitozzi, Nicola Agliardi, Ugo Ponzoni, Sara Chiodoli, Elena Marazzi, Ettore Brocca, Filippo Trasatti, Michela Redaelli, Marianna Pedroni, Claudia Pesenti, Cristina Pinetti, Laura Piantoni, Elena Macconi, Giampietro Fascioli, Annalisa Lozza, Silvia Mazzucchelli, Filippo Zani [TOP]
Letter from Ian Ravenscroft [return to contents]
Dear Professor Trainor,
I am a former staff member of the KCL Philosophy Department, and I write to express my very considerable concern about the proposed staff cuts at the Department. I note that the King's Philosophy Department is ranked third in the UK, and I find it puzzling that the College plans to take an ax to what must be one of the brightest jewels in its crown. The individual staff members who the College plans to fire are all outstanding scholars and teachers whose retention should be a priority.
Moreover, whilst few details are available to me, I am deeply concerned about talk of moving away from a discipline based structure towards more interdiscplinary units. Serious scholarship in any field requires a critical mass of disciplinary expertise. The King's Philosophy Department has exactly that critical mass--which is why it has obtained a reputation for outstanding teaching and research not only in the UK but across the world. To jeopardize its reputation by enforcing structural change strikes me as misguided.
Yours faithfully,
Ian Ravenscroft, Associate Professor
Dept of Philosophy, Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia [TOP]
Letter from Hilary Putnam [return to contents]
department of philosophy
harvard university
cambridge, massachusetts 02138
February 3, 2010
The Principal, Professor Rick Trainor: principal@kcl.ac.uk
Vice-Principal, Professor Keith Hoggart: keith.hoggart@kcl.ac.uk
Head of the School of Arts & Humanities, Professor Jan Palmowski: jan.palmowski@kcl.ac.uk
Dear Professors Trainor, Hoggart, and Palmowski,
I write to express my dismay at recent events at Kings College. According to the information that I have received, Professor Simon Lappin was informed of compulsory redundancy on the basis of KCL ‘divesting itself of computational linguistics’. I have been told that as recently as July 2009 you yourself assured him that neither he nor the Department at large was being targeted for redundancies. I also understand that there is no department of computational linguistics to be shut down, and that Prof Lappin and Dr Meyer-Viol are full and integral members of the Philosophy Department. We also understand that contrary to contractual agreements about post-retirement age employment, you have sought to force Prof. Charles Travis into retirement without conducting the performance review contractually specified, or giving any grounds for forcing the retirement. I understand that these specific cases are part of a larger pattern of reorganization of Humanities at King’s, where you seek to make 22 academics redundant, and have put all academic staff on notice of potential redundancy.
I know very well that today philosophy departments in the English-speaking countries are playing the leading role in what is today as exciting a period in the subject as I have seen in my over fifty years in the profession, and I know that the department at Kings College has for a number of years been one the best of those departments. Not one of my own books in recent years has failed to refer to the work of Professsor Travis, for example, and the book I am now writing discusses the work for other members of the department, who may, for all I know, be forced out if this unwise plan is carried out. (Professors Lappin and Meyer-Viol represent an important and sorely needed alternative to the Chomskian paradigm for linguistics and philosophy of language.) The proposed reorganization will "send the message" that cutting-edge analytic philosophy is not all that important—when you should be sending the very opposite message. I hope that you will find a way to reverse this most unfortunate plan.
Sincerely yours,
Hilary Putnam
Cogan University Professor Emeritus, Harvard University [TOP]
Letter from Jonathan Adler [return to contents]
Principal, Rick Trainor principal@kcl.ac.uk Head of School for Arts and Humanities Jan Palmowski jan.palmowski@kcl.ac.uk Vice Principal for Arts and Science Keith Hoggart keith.hoggart@kcl.ac.uk
Dear Professors Trainor, Palmowski, and Hoggart
We the undersigned faculty in philosophy are deeply disturbed at the outrageous 'reorganization' plans for the humanities at KCL, and, more specifically, the treatment of the philosophy department and a number of very distinguished members of that department.
We will be brief in order to enter our views in time to affect final decisions and because of our lack of detailed knowledge of the situation and as you have received letters of protest from those with far better knowledge of those details.
We are very familiar with economic exigencies demanding a variety of cuts at universities. But the extreme and targeted nature of the cuts proposed is hardly with precedents. It would be met with sustained protests in the U.S. Academic rights and minimal professional commitments to honesty, fair treatment, respect for contractual duties, collegiality, and civilities have been violated or their violation is in the works.
The damage to the deservedly high reputation of KCL is severe and it will be far worse if the plan is realized. KCL has always been regarded as one of the outstanding departments of philosophy. Dr. Wilfried Meyer-Viol is a superb logician working at the forefront of major fields of logic and computation. Two others in immediate danger-Charles Travis and Shalom Lappin-have international reputations of the highest stature in their respective fields. Both are leaders in the philosophy of language, broadly conceived and in a variety of sub or connected branches (Wittgenstein, pragmatics, formal and computational linguistics and semantics). How can a first-rate liberal arts university act so dismissively toward a school, department, and faculty of this achievement, excellence, and promise?
We urge a thorough reconsideration of these plans.
Sincerely,
Jonathan E. Adler
CUNY
I have verified most of the names on the list below as members of philosophy departments.
Ümit Deniz Tura
Kate Nave
Elizabeth Key
We cannot afford to loose this invaluable experise which is already scare over the UK.
TZU-WEI HUNG
Miranda Fricker
Nicholas Shea
Christoph Lumer
Christoph Jäger
Ruth Zimmerling
Carsten Griesel
Ulrike Steinbrenner
Hans-Johann Glock
Anna Greco
Shamik Dasgupta
Richard Bellamy
Ulrich Stegmann
Rebecca Bamford
Thomas Kivatinos
Rafal Urbaniak
George Graham
James Lenman
Kathleen Moss
Shami Ghosh
Iakovos Vasiliou
isabelle dedieu
Prof.d.r. J.J.M.M. Rutten
Martin Kusch
dan dennis
Chrysi Papaioannou
Neil Barton
Hope Macdonald
Ulvi Doguoglu
Georg Brun
Senior research fellow, Environmental Philosophy, ETH Zurich. .
Isabel Scott
Dana Tulodziecki
John Greenwood
Catherine Elgin
Sean Ebels Duggan
Kristian Krieger
Rene Hohmann
Pekka Vayrynen
Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, University of Leeds.
Vimal Bedia
Nicholas Allott
Apparently KCL is intent on destroying its reputation and its philosophy department in one move. I work in linguistic pragmatics and semantics and I add my voice to the many who have pointed out that Lappin, Meyer-Viol and Travis are leading scholars with worldwide reputations. Charles Travis is one of a handful of philosophers of language whose work is of the first importance for linguistic pragmatics. KCL has been for several years one of the leading universities in the world in formal semantics. A few years ago I was privileged, as a graduate student at another London college, to learn my formal semantics from Wilfried Meyer-Viol in classes at KCL. I would not have received better tuition anywhere else in the world, and I could not have received tuition to that standard anywhere else in England. To repeat, KCL has been a world-leading centre for formal semantics. It is appalling that the college authorities have decided to destroy this centre of excellence and bizarre that they are doing it under the guise of disinvesting from computational science. I urge them to reverse their decisions and salvage what they can of their reputation.
Roberta Millstein
Jason Kawall
Marion Godman
David Stern
Professor of Philosophy, University of Iowa
Daniel Groll
Justin Steinberg
Christopher Harwood
Nancy Hall
Craig Duncan
Elmar Geir Unnsteinsson
Allen Coates
Leandro De Brasi
Jason Altilio
Alison Wood
Sabrina Bano Jamil
Assistant Professor Wolfson Campus, Miami Dade College Miami, FL
Jamin Asay
Fiona Macpherson
Rosemary Twomey
Athanasios Tyraskis
Maximilian Turunen
C. D. C. Reeve
Elizabeth Finneron
Duncan Bell
Lecturer in Politics and International Studies, University of Cambridge
Jon Cogburn
Kiel Arneson
Santiago J. Martín-Ciprián
Associate professor, Tokai University .
Alex Lascarides
Nils Kurbis
Saulo Diaz
Christopher Woodard
Simon Choat
Brian Ball
Axel Gelfert
Alex Tillas
Thomas Sturm
Bob Plant
Simon Kirchin
Albert Newen
Philippe Eyssidieux
Professeur de Mathématiques, Université de Grenoble. .
Josef J Stern
I am deeply disturbed both of its violations of the rights of the faculty concerned and about its implications for future academic enterprises in the UK.
Antony Duff
Heather Kuiper
James Mahon
Dept. of Philosophy, Washington & Lee University. .
Tad Brennan
Professor of Philosophy & Classics, Cornell University Former Lecturer in Philosophy, King\'s College, London
Andrés Garcia Almqvist
Tony Cheng
Andrew Williams
Philip Corkum
Assistant Professor, Philosophy Department, University of Alberta. MA King\'s College London 1996.
Arthur Ripstein
Aaminah Haq
Roger Clarke
Matthew Smith
Thomas Parrott
Alan White
Professor, University of Wisconsin--Manitowoc.
John Callanan
Angela Coventry
Robert Icsezen
Jonathan Webber
Lecturer in Philosophy, Cardiff University.
Jonny McIntosh
PhD student, UCL
Joel Smith
Lecturer in Philosophy, University of Manchester. .
Thom Brooks
Reader in Political and Legal Philosophy, University of Newcastle. .
Franz-Peter Griesmaier
Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Wyoming
Ori Simchen
Bruce Laforse, PhD
Scott Wilson
Andreas Schmidhauser
Joseph Shieber, Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy, Lafayette College (Pennsylvania, USA)
Bernard Yu
Amit Anurag
Edi Pranz
Jonathan Way
Lecturer in Philosophy, University of Stirling
Simon Cabulea May
Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Virginia Tech.
Stephen Butterfill
John Schwenkler
Kent Bach
Alexander Miller
Head of Philosophy, University of Birmingham
Stef Antoniou
Christopher Dohna
Charlie Pelling
Pedro Henrique Gomes Muniz
Micah Cobb
Sergio Tenenbaum
James C. Edwards
Paul Cummins
Scott Sturgeon
Michael K. Potter
Alex Gregory
Wes Anderson
Jeremy Ginsburg
Greg Moore
Ned Block
Lita Feng
Daniel Star
I am a concerned assistant professor of philosophy
James Wilberding
Jonathan Kvanvig
Daniel Whiting
Gary Banham
P J E Kail
Tamar Gendler
Chris Lawn
Charlie Huenemann
Karl Degré
Andy Wimbush
Ásta Kristjana Sveinsdóttir
Clayton Littlejohn
Frederique Janssen-Lauret
Guy Elgat
Anna Alexandrova
Nick Treanor
George Charles Allen
I absolutely and wholeheartedly support this petition.
J.C. Berendzen
Andrew Sneddon
Manuel Vargas
Benjamin Young
As an Alumni of the philosophy department at Kings\' College
Daniel Weiskopf
Lisa Warenski
David Knowles
Joachim Horvath
Peter Vallentyne
Stacie Friend
Jesse Steinberg
Michael Kremer Professor of Philosophy University of Chicago
Omar Khan
Thomas Crowther
Guy Longworth
Richard Moran
Ajax Narrawai
Richard Brown
I absolutely support this petition.
John M. Doris
Matthew Lister
This is an obviously inappropriate way to deal with the budget problem at Kings. I hope that a more reasonable solution will be reached, one that will not do as serious damage to the school as the one proposed here surely will.
Brian Leiter
Hilary Kornblith
Saulo Diaz
Letter from Anthony Savile [return to contents]
Dear Principal,
I write to you about the School of Humanities’ proposal to dismiss Dr Meyer-Viol and Professor Lappin under its programme of divesting itself of various dispensable units of activity.
While both Dr, Meyer-Viol and Professor Lappin originally joined the College as members of the Computational Linguistics team, for a number of years they have both been fully integrated into department of philosophy. Dr Meyer-Viol is the department’s only specialist in formal logic and Professor Lappin’s work in the philosophy of language is at the heart of philosophy as currently practised. The teaching and research of these two fine colleagues have contributed greatly to the department’s outstanding ratings and their loss would be directly at odds with the College’s desire to foster academic excellence in central areas.
When seeking to identify areas of research that could be cut back it may have seemed that Computational Linguistics was a relatively self-contained and somewhat esoteric discipline, rather detached from the core activities of the School. However, the way in which the discipline has been taken forward by Meyer-Viol and Lappin within the philosophy department belies any such presumption. At the very least, before going ahead the College would do well to seek external expert advice on the academic impact of the proposed losses. To my mind it is practically inconceivable that a first rate philosophy department could flourish without established expertise in formal logic and hard to credit that loss in the philosophy of language would not quickly have to be made good by new appointment. It should be plain that these two posts are not redundant ones.
As far as the two individual members of the department are concerned, natural justice demands that when the matter of retentions and sackings is faced they be treated no less favourably than other members of the School. Anything else could only damage the College’s reputation as a good employer as well as expose it to the risk of unwelcome litigation. I urge you to rescind the pending dismissals.
Yours sincerely,
Anthony Savile Emeritus Professor of Philosophy [TOP]
Letter from Mark Sainsbury [return to contents]
Dear Principal
I write as an Emeritus Professor of King’s College London and a Fellow of the College concerning the restructuring of the School of Arts and Humanities. When I came to the Philosophy Department at King’s in 1986 there were four academic staff and two PhD students. I don’t have to tell you the current very different figures. Numbers don’t matter in themselves, of course, but they are indicative of the department’s success in terms of attracting the best academics and the best students. That achievement is worth preserving.
I have not written sooner because I was expecting the College to respond to the world-wide storm of criticisms that its actions have incurred. It seemed to me likely either that Professor Palmowski had been misunderstood, or that he had jumped the gun in telling Professor Lappin that he was to be made redundant, when in fact this redundancy was a proposal in a consultation document still to be widely discussed. On either scenario, there would have been an easy and damage-limiting response to the furore: the College could have explained that there had been a misunderstanding, that this was still merely a proposal at discussion stage, and that of course the letters of support from outside King’s would be taken very seriously in that discussion.
But as far as I know, there has been complete silence from the College. Silence encourages the belief that the College was deliberately violating its own procedures, deliberately acting with no concern for academic excellence, and that the supposed consultation document was a sham, registering a fait accompli. This belief, growing more widespread every day, is highly detrimental to the College’s reputation. I am speaking of its reputation well beyond philosophy and closely linked disciplines, and well beyond the UK. The issue is being watched all over the world by students and academics with a wide range of different interests.
With every day of silence from management, that damage will be harder to repair. King’s has presented itself to the world as an institution that does not follow its own procedures (and in so doing probably acts illegally), and that has a remarkably poor understanding of where its academic strengths lie (or even of what its academics do, as the ignorant use of the label “computational linguistics” shows). This will affect the College’s capacity to attract the best staff not just in Philosophy, but anywhere in the College (who would want to be employed by an employer who acts like this?). And it will affect the College’s capacity to attract the best students, especially at graduate level (who would wish to study at an institution that behaves like this, and whose policies commit it to hiring second-rate academics?). The upshot will be a decrease in the College’s financial viability. Research ratings and attendant funding will decline, and so will student applications. Indeed, when the history of the College comes to be written in a dozen or so years, this may emerge as the turning point, at which the goal of being a “centre of excellence” slipped from the College’s grasp. It’s hard to understand the merits of such a plan.
It’s not that I fail to recognize the need for the College to make savings. Of course that need exists, and not through the College’s fault. But the College’s own procedures state that redundancy is to be proposed only after it has sought to “avoid or minimize any dismissals” and has “considered alternatives …”. No one I have been able to reach at King’s believes that these things have been done, and nor have the selection criteria been revealed (as the Regulation requires). Had these criteria involved internationally recognized distinction in research, excellence in teaching, and capacity to attract research students, Professors Travis and Lappin would not have been targeted. So what criteria were used? It’s hard for cynical answers not to present themselves.
You already have many hundreds of outside people testifying to the academic excellence of the potential victims of the redundancy in Philosophy. I will add my word about the two people whose work I know fairly well, Professors Travis and Lappin. Despite language being at the centre of the interests of both, in style and approach they could hardly be more different—a diversity that is, or should I say was, a widely admired feature of our Philosophy department. Travis tackles the broadest issues of the role of language in the life of the mind, and its connection with perception and communication. Lappin’s approach is much more detailed and technical, imaginatively crafting theoretical structures to model aspects of language use. Both thinkers deservedly have absolutely towering reputations internationally. The names of both would be known to graduate students (let alone faculty) in any serious department of philosophy; and anyone working in philosophy of language will have read work by both of them. How could the College’s reputation possibly be served by firing such distinguished figures? Just the opposite. Their dismissal will be read world-wide as an act of an Institution that no longer cares about excellence. I write in a spirit of hope: the hope that an institution in which I have spent the major part of my professional life, and for which I have a deep respect and affection, will not shoot itself in the foot.
Yours sincerely
Mark Sainsbury, FBA, FKC Professor of Philosophy, The University of Texas at Austin [TOP]
Letter from the Philosophy Dept, University of California, Berkeley [return to contents]
February 3, 2010
Prof. Rick Trainor, Principal of King's College London
Prof. Keith Hoggart, Vice-Principal of King's College London
Prof. Jan Palmowski, Head of School of Humanities, King's College London
Dear Profs. Trainor, Hoggart, and Palmowski:
We write to protest in the strongest possible terms the plans that have been announced to terminate the contracts of three senior members of the Philosophy Department at Kings College London.
Profs. Lappin and Travis and Dr. Meyer-Viol are distinguished and productive scholars whose work is held in the highest international esteem. It is incomprehensible that they should be made redundant as a result of a reorganization scheme that was hatched without consulting the affected academic units. The decision is all the more astonishing in light of the personal assurances that were recently made to the scholars who are targeted for redundancy or forced retirement.
If these plans are carried out, we expect the effect on KCL to be profound: distinguished scholars currently on your faculty will leave, and it will become well-nigh impossible to recruit outstanding scholars in the future to your university.
We urge you to reconsider this ill-considered scheme and to reinstate immediately the three members of the KCL philosophy department.
Faculty of the Department of Philosophy
The University of California, Berkeley
Berkeley, CA 94720-2390
Lara Buchak, Assistant Professor
John Campbell, Slusser Professor
Niko Kolodny, Associate Professor
Geoffrey Lee, Assistant Professor
John MacFarlane, Associate Professor
Paolo Mancosu, Professor
Michael Martin, Mills Adjunct Professor
Véronique Munoz-Dardé, Mills Adjunct Professor
Alva Noë, Professor
Sherrilyn Roush, Associate Professor
R. Jay Wallace, Professor and Department Chair
Seth Yalcin, Assistant Professor [TOP]
Letter from Bob Brecher [return to contents]
Dear Prof Trainor
I am sure that you will agree that, as Vice Chancellor, your immediate responsibility is to KCL and your wider duty is to academic work and values in general. In light of those two obvious facts, I can scarcely believe that you seriously propose to act as an agent of the government's clear policy to cretinize our universities and thus our public life. Quite apart from the manifest injustice to the individuals concerned -- and the resultant damage done to KCL itself -- your refusal to stand up to being bullied by your paymasters and to collaborate in their philistine project will help to undermine the very idea of a university.
I urge you to think again: not only for all the reasons that others have already pointed out, but so that you may in future be able to look in the mirror without shame.
Yours sincerely
Dr Bob Brecher
Director Centre for Applied Philosophy, Politics & Ethics University of Brighton [TOP]
Open letter by Swedish researchers [return to contents]
Dear Professors Palmowski, Trainor, and Hoggart,
Researchers in the area of philosophy, linguistics, computer science, and logic in Sweden are deeply concerned about the news that, as a consequence of reorganizing Humanities at KCL, Prof Shalom Lappin, Dr Wilfried Meyer-Viol, and Dr. Jonathan Ginzburg are to face compulsory redundancy as of autumn 2010, and Prof Charles Travis is to be forced into retirement contrary to the contract on which he was hired in 2005. Even if KCL decides to "divest computational linguistics" -- in itself a very dubious move -- this is a poor excuse for the measure taken against these three persons, and presumably others as well. None of them is mainly a computational linguist. More importantly, they are all internationally renowned scholars whose excellence contributes to KCL's own reputation of excellence.
Moreover, we are shocked and dismayed to learn that Prof Lappin turned down an attractive offer from Hebrew University only six months ago, since he was given reassurances that his job was not in danger. Is it even legal, in Britain, to impose forced redundancy in such a situation?
We do not understand why this is happening, but we are certain that if these measures are carried through, they will taint the reputation of KCL for many years to come, in view of its apparent disregard not only for excellence but also for a decent treatment of its academic staff. We hope that some mistake has been committed, and we urge you to reconsider.
Sincerely,
Prof Dag Westerståhl, Dr Christian Bennet, Prof Margareta Hallberg, Prof Torbjörn Lager, Dr Staffan Larsson
Department of Philosophy, Linguistics and Theory of Science University of Gothenburg
Prof Peter Pagin, Prof Kathrin Glüer-Pagin, Dr Sören Häggqvist, Prof Åsa Wikforss
Department of Philosophy Stockholm University
Prof Jens Allwood
IT University, Chalmers and University of Gothenburg
Prof Sven-Ove Hansson
Department of Philosophy and the History of Technology KTH Royal Institute of Technology
Prof Wlodek Rabinowicz
Department of Philosophy Lund University
Prof Erik Palmgren
Department of Mathematics Uppsala University
Prof Sten Lindström, Dr Pär Sundström
Department of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies Umeå University
Prof Eva Strangert
Department of Language Studies Umeå University [TOP]
Letter of Protest from the International Federation of Computational Logic [return to contents]
Saarbrücken, the 5th of February 2010
DearProf Jan Palmowski, Head of School for Arts and Humanities
Prof Rich Trainor, Principal of Arts and Science
Prof Keith Hoggart, Vice Principal of Arts and Sciences
Mr Chris Mottershead, Vice Principal of Research and Innovation King's College, London
I am writing to express the concern of the International Federation > for Computational Logic for the recent actions Kings College has been taking over a number of its top researchers. I refer to pending dismissals of Shalom Lappin, Wilfried Meyer-Viol, Jonathan Ginzburg, Anatoli Degtyarev and Odinaldo Rodrigues.
We have had extensive dealings with all of these academics who have each produced the highest quality research both in their primary fields and with members of IFCoLog working in other fields. Shalom Lappin, Wilfried Meyer-Viol and Jonathan Ginzburg have published extensively on the application of logic and computation in linguistics and philosophy, Anatoli Degtyarev is very well known for his work on temporal theorem proving and Odinaldo Rodrigues is an international authority on the the application of logic to practical and computational revision processes and systems.
IFCoLog has worked with each of these academics to arrange a substantial number of conferences and research projects based at Kings College over the years, and they have enabled Kings to be seen a centre of research excellence in the field of logic and computation. Currently IFCoLog is funding a number of projects in the philosophy and computer science departments at Kings, we do so because Kings is currently a world leader in research and teaching in many areas of computational, philosophical, linguistic and mathematical logic.
Because of the importance of these academics, the research they are > conducting and the areas in which they are working, we find it hard to understand how Kings College has seen fit to reduce the size of logic in both the departments of philosophy and computer science ("but on a scale commensurate with the needs of the new department", to quote the head of the dept. of computer science) without consultation at all with the logic group itself. Furthermore, it makes little sense that academics making such clear contributions to excellence of their departments should be treated in this way by their administration.
Yours,
Professor Dr Jörg Siekmann President, IFCoLog Director of the DFKI Professor of Computer Science and AI University of Saarbrücken > <http://www-ags.dfki.uni-sb.de/> [TOP]
Letter from David Owens [return to contents]
Professor Palmowski,
I am writing to express grave concern at the proposed restructuring of the Arts and Humanities Faculty at Kings. I am a professor of philosophy at the University of Sheffield and it so happens that my department was ranked third equal with KCL philosophy in the 2008 RAE. I know the Kings philosophy department well. I've applied for senior positions at the department and twice been shortlisted in recent years. My very high regard for the department and my conversations in the past few days with several of its members move me to write to urge you to withdraw these proposals.
Many colleagues outside KCL have already protested at the treatment of three members of the philosophy department. I share those concerns but I'm particularly shocked by the proposed re-appointment procedure to which all academic staff will be subject. Any such procedure poses a threat to the freedom of academic inquiry in the humanities but your proposals are particularly ominous. Until now, it was generally agreed that academics were worthy of continued employment provided they did quality research within a recognised area of their discipline, taught courses on topics within a recognised area of their discipline to a reasonable standard and behaved as good citizens within their departments. I understand continued employment at KCL will now depend on rather different criteria: your research topic must be endorsed and funded by governmental bodies, your courses must be popular with students and good departmental citizenship will now be irrelevant: only 'strategic vision' will gain any credit.
KCL, like Sheffield, faces serious and perhaps unprecedented financial difficulties. These difficulties should not be used by management as cover for the imposition of central direction on research in the humanities. If you really need to make staff savings amongst the front line teaching staff (rather than within the College's administrative apparatus) you should do so in the way that elite institutions in the USA have recently done. No respectable institution in the USA has proposed sacking staff who are found not to be pursuing research goals determined by management. Were management at Sheffield to attempt this, I am confident my colleagues and I would refuse to cooperate with such a procedure. Nor would I consider applying for a position at KCL again until these proposals are permanently set aside. I strongly urge you to reconsider,
David Owens
Professor of Philosophy, Sheffield University [TOP]
Letter from the BPA and UK Learned Societies in Philosophy [return to contents]
Dear Professor Trainor and Lord Douro
I am writing to you on behalf of the British Philosophical Association
and the learned societies listed below to register our dismay at the
proposed redundancies in the Philosophy Department at KCL.
The KCL Philosophy Department has an outstanding international
reputation. As you will be aware, in RAE2008 it was placed third in
the Times Higher Education league tables, with an average score of
3.05 and 35% of submitted work rated at 4*. In addition, the
Department was ranked 6th in the English-speaking world, outside
the USA, in the 2009 ‘Leiter Report’ rankings of philosophy graduate
programmes.
The proposed redundancies of two members of staff – Prof. Lappin
and Dr. Meyer-Viol – will have an immediate and serious effect on
the Department’s and the College’s international standing, as will
the proposal to, in effect, force all staff to reapply for their jobs.
First, these two members of staff contribute significantly to the
teaching and research of the Department in the areas of logic and
philosophy of language. The loss of these staff members, and the
threatened redundancy of others, will have an immediate and direct
impact both on the research reputation of the Department and its
postgraduate recruitment. (The situation at KCL has been widely
publicised and there is already evidence of prospective students
with offers from KCL thinking seriously about taking up places
elsewhere.)
Second, the long-term effects of the University’s approach may well
prove to be even more harmful. Few people are happy to work in an
institution that treats its staff in this way, and the College may find
that some of its best philosophers seek employment elsewhere; and
of course recruitment of world-class staff in the future may also
prove to be difficult.
In short, the College’s actions will not only severely damage its
reputation as an employer, but seriously risks damaging the
outstanding international reputation for teaching and research that
the Philosophy Department currently enjoys.
We appreciate that institutions undergoing financial difficulties are
forced to make difficult decisions. However, it is in the long-term
interests of KCL if such decisions are made as a result of a fair and
transparent process and are justified by legitimate academic as well
as financial considerations. We therefore urge you to reconsider the
recent decisions and proposed course of action with regard to the
Philosophy Department and instead to conduct a full review, with
input from external academics, of your provision in the humanities.
Yours sincerely,
Helen Beebee
Director, British Philosophical Association
And on behalf of: representing:
Dr Michael Brady Scots Philosophical Association
Prof Antony Duff & Prof David Papineau
Mind Association
Prof Simon Blackburn Aristotelian Society
Dr Natasha Alechina British Logic Colloquium
Prof Jennifer Saul Society for Women in Philosophy
Prof Peter Jones Association for Legal and Social
Philosophy
Prof Alan Montefiore Forum for European Philosophy
Dr Diarmuid Costello British Society for Aesthetics
Prof David Archard Society for Applied Philosophy
Prof Richard Smith Philosophy of Education Society of
Great Britain
Prof Graham Bird UK Kant Society
Prof Martin Bell British Society for the History of
Philosophy
Dr John Preston British Wittgenstein Society
Dr Simon Kirchin British Society for Ethical Theory [TOP]
Open Letter from Johan van Benthem and 243 logicians and computer scientists [return to contents]
To:
o Professor Rick Trainor, Principal of King's College London
o Professor Keith Hoggart, Vice-Principal (Arts & Sciences)
o Mr. Chris Mottershead, Vice-Principal (Research & Innovation)
and Head of School of Physical Sciences & Engineering
o Professor Jan Palmowski, Head of School of Arts & Humanities
February 7, 2010
Dear Sirs,
I am sending you an open letter that has been signed by 243 scientists.
It is available on the Internet at
http://sites.google.com/site/kclgllcmeltdown/international-letter.
I am sending you the text by email, and will also send
a copy by fax and regular mail tomorrow.
Yours sincerely,
Johan van Benthem
===============================
OPEN LETTER The Future of Logic, Language and Computation at KCL
Dear Prof. Trainor, Prof. Hoggart, Mr. Mottershead, Prof. Palmowski,
News has reached us that, as part of the restructuring exercise currently
taking place at KCL, you are planning to dismiss a number of members
of staff in the Departments of Computer Science and Philosophy
that host a highly successful research tradition in Logic, Language and
Computation at your institution. As members of the international
community in this field, we are writing to you to add our voices to
those of the many distinguished colleagues who have contacted you
already and to express our grave concerns regarding the recent
developments at KCL.
The Group of Logic, Language and Computation, spanning the
departments of Computer Science and Philosophy at KCL, enjoys
an outstanding international reputation for its work on the foundations
and practice of information, and its repercussions in many disciplines,
from Computer Science and Mathematics to Cognitive Science,
Linguistics, and Philosophy.
Through the pioneering work of the members of this group, KCL
has been able to position itself as a centre of excellence in this field
as well as an international hub of activities. There are few institutions
in the world that can muster a similar concentration of expertise in
this important interdisciplinary research domain, and in the UK
your institution has long been the undisputed leader.
It is our understanding that the current plans foresee to eliminate
four positions at the Department of Computer Science and three
positions at the Department of Philosophy. This will, for all
practical purposes, amount to shutting down interdisciplinary
research at the interface of Computer Science and the Humanities.
Such a move will leave a serious gap in the research profile of
KCL and severely harm its scientific status.
The planned cuts are all the more deplorable since they affect a
field that is very much alive, and at the vanguard of European
research. For instance, the annual European Summer School in
Logic, Language and Information (ESSLLI) attracts hundreds of
graduate students each year, and the European Science Foundation
has recently initiated a major funding programme targeting
interdisciplinary research in Logic and Intelligent Interaction
(LogiCCC). There are very good reasons for this trend. The
fundamental scientific problems addressed are crucial to
understanding our current information society, and they also
form a coherent agenda across traditional disciplines, making
for the coherence of academic institutions from the sciences
to the humanities. At the same time, the distance from theory
to practice is often startlingly small in this area, and in fact,
your group at KCL has been instrumental in making links
with areas as diverse as natural language processing, data
base design, and argumentation studies.
We therefore seriously urge you to reconsider your plans to
shut down research in Logic, Language and Computation at
King's College London. Implementing the planned cuts will
only save relatively little money, and these short-term savings
will come at the cost of great and irreparable loss in reputation
for your esteemed institution.
Sincerely,
Johan van Benthem
University Professor of Pure and Applied Logic, University of Amsterdam
Henry Waldgrave Stuart Professor of Philosophy, Stanford University
Member of the Royal Dutch Academy of Arts and Sciences,
the Academia Europaea, and the Institut International de Philosophie
Dana S. Scott, FBA, FNAS, MAE, FAAS, FACM
University Professor Emeritus
Carnegie Mellon University
Visiting Scholar
University of California, Berkeley
Moshe Y. Vardi, FACM, MAE, FAAAI, FIEEE
George Professor in Computational Engineering
Department of Computer Science
Rice University
Samson Abramsky, FRS, MAE
Christopher Strachey Professor of Computing
Oxford University Computing Laboratory, UK
Anthony G Cohn, FBCS, FIET, FAAAI, FAISB, FECCAI
Prof. of Automated Reasoning
University of Leeds
Wilfrid Hodges, FBA
Herons Brook, Sticklepath
Okehampton EX20 2PY
Mark Steedman, FBA, FRSE, MAE
Professor, School of Informatics
University of Edinburgh, UK
Neil Immerman, FACM
Professor
Department of Computer Science
University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Amherst, MA, USA
Joseph Halpern, FACM
Professor
Computer Science Department
Cornell University
Dexter Kozen, FACM
Joseph Newton Pew, Jr Professor
Computer Science
Cornell University
Ithaca, New York, USA
Jeff Paris, FBA
Professor
School of Mathematics
University of Manchester
Robert Goldblatt, FRSNZ
Professor of Pure Mathematics
Center for Logic, Language and Computation
Victoria University of Wellington
New Zealand
Grigori Mints
Professor of Philosophy and Mathematics
Stanford University
Member of Estonian Academy of Sciences
Erik Sandewall
Professor of Computer Science
Linköping University, Sweden
Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences,
the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences,
and Academia Europaea
James Higginbotham, FBA
Distinguished Professor of Philosophy & Linguistics
Chair, Department of Linguistics
University of Southern California
Los Angeles, California, USA
Joan Bresnan
Sadie Dernham Patek Professor Emerita in Humanities and
Senior Researchers, Center for the Study of Language and Information
Stanford University
Fellow and former President of the Linguistic Society of America
Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
John Woods, FRSC
Director, The Abductive Systems Group
University of British Columbia
Vancouver
Greg Restall FAHA
Associate Professor of Philosophy
School of Philosophy, Anthropology and Social Inquiry
The University of Melbourne, Australia
Alasdair Urquhart
Professor Emeritus
Philosophy and Computer Science
University of Toronto
Vice-President, Association for Symbolic Logic
Melvin Fitting
Professor, Departments of Computer Science, Philosophy, Mathematics
Graduate Center of the City University of New York
New York
Nuel Belnap
Alan Ross Anderson Distinguished Professor of Philosophy
Professor of the History and Philosophy of Science
University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
J. Michael Dunn
Professor Emeritus of Computer Science and Informatics
Oscar Ewing Professor Emeritus of Philosophy
Dean Emeritus, Indiana University School of Informatics and Computing
Bloomington, IN, USA
Dick de Jongh
Emeritus Professor of Mathematical Logic
Institute for Logic, Language and Computation
Universiteit van Amsterdam
Stanley Peters
Professor Emeritus of Linguistics
Director, Center for the Study of Language and Information
Stanford University, United States
Jörg Siekmann
Professor of Computer Science and AI
Director of the DFKI (German Research Centre for AI)
Chairman of the International Federation for Computational Logic
Saarbrücken, Germany
Ramon Lopez de Mantaras
Director
Artificial Intelligence Research Institute
Spanish National Research Council
Bellaterra, Barcelona, Spain
Thomas Eiter
Professor of Computer Science
Institute of Information Systems
Vienna University of Technology, Austria
Yuri Gurevich
Principal Researcher, Microsoft, Redmond, WA, USA
Professor Emeritus, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA
Andreas Blass
Professor of Mathematics
University of Michigan, U.S.A.
Lawrence S. Moss
Director, Program in Pure and Applied Logic
Professor of Mathematics
Indiana University, Bloomington USA
Thomas Wasow
Clarence Irving Lewis Professor of Philosophy and
Chair, Department of Linguistics
Stanford University
Stanford, California USA
John Horty
Professor and Chair, Philosophy Department and
Professor, Institute for Advanced Computer Studies
University of Maryland, USA
Ian Hodkinson
Professor of Logic and Computation
Department of Computing
Imperial College London
Marek Sergot
Professor of Computational Logic
Imperial College London
Georg Gottlob
Professor of Computing Science
Oxford University Computing Laboratory
University of Oxford
Ian Horrocks
Professor of Computer Science
Oxford University Computing Laboratory
University of Oxford
Oxford, UK
Bonnie Webber
Professor of Intelligent Systems
University of Edinburgh
Peter Aczel
Professor (Emeritus) of
Mathematical Logic and Computing Science
Schools of Mathematics and Computer Science
The University of Manchester, U.K.
Howard Barringer
Professor of Computer Science
School of Computer Science
University of Manchester
Manchester, M13 9PL, UK
Uli Sattler
Professor, School of Computer Science
University of Manchester, UK
Alan L Rector
Professor of Medical Informatics
School of Computer Science
University of Manchester
Michael Fisher
Professor of Computer Science
Department of Computer Science
University of Liverpool
Frank Wolter
Professor
Department of Computer Science
University of Liverpool
Mark D. Ryan
Professor of Computer Security
University of Birmingham, UK
Ian Gent
Professor
School of Computer Science
University of St Andrews
David Makinson
Visiting Professor
Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method
LSE London
Michael Zakharyaschev
Professor of Computer Science
Department of Computer Science and Information Systems
Birkbeck, University of London
TSE Maibaum
Canada Research Chair in the Foundations of Software Engineering
Department of Computing & Software
McMaster University
Hans Jürgen Ohlbach
Professor at the Computer Science Institute
University of Munich, Germany
Ulle Endriss
Assistant Professor of Computational Logic
Institute for Logic, Language and Computation, University of Amsterdam
Raquel Fernandez
Research Fellow
Institute for Logic, Language and Computation, University of Amsterdam
Reinhard Blutner
Lecturer at the University of Amsterdam
Institute for Logic, Language and Computation
Privat docent at the Department of Linguistics
Humboldt University Berlin
Jan van Eijck
Senior Researcher, CWI (Centre for Mathematics and Computer Science) Amsterdam
Professor of Computational Linguistics, University of Utrecht
Henk Zeevat
Senior Lecturer
Institute for Logic, Language and Computation, University of Amsterdam
Robin Hirsch
Reader
Computer Science, UCL
Sonja Smets
Rosalind Franklin Research Fellow
Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences,
Faculty of Philosophy
University of Groningen
Carlos Areces
Senior Researcher
INRIA Nancy Grand Est
Eric Pacuit
Assistant Professor
Department of Philosophy
Resident Fellow
Tilburg Center for Logic and Philosophy of Science
Tilburg University
Jan Broersen
Intelligent Systems Group
Department of Information and Computing Sciences
Faculty of Science
Utrecht University
Gerard Vreeswijk
Assistant Professor
Intelligent Systems Group
Department of Information and Computing Sciences
Faculty of Science
Utrecht University
Sebastian Sequoiah-Grayson
Postdoctoral Research Fellow - Formal Epistemology Project
Centre for Logic - Institute of Philosophy
University of Leuven, Belgium
Senior Research Associate - IEG, Computing Laboratory
University of Oxford
Alexandru Baltag
University Lecturer
Oxford University Computing Laboratory
University of Oxford
Zoran Macura
Research Fellow
Centre for Robotics and Neural Systems
University of Plymouth
Stefan Schlobach
Assistant Professor - Knowledge Representation and Reasoning
Department of Computer Science, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Matthew Purver
Lecturer
Department of Computer Science
Queen Mary, University of London
Yo Sato
Research Fellow
Science and Technology Research Institute
University of Hertfordshire
Roman Kontchakov
Research Fellow
Department of Computer Science and Information Systems
Birkbeck, University of London
Christian Ebert
Lecturer
Department of Linguistics
University of Tuebingen
David Gabelaia
Research Fellow
Razmadze Mathematical Institute
Tbilisi, Georgia.
Rineke Verbrugge
Professor of Logic and Cognition
Institute of Artificial Intelligence
Faculty of Mathematica and Natural Sciences
University of Groningen
The Netherlands
Bryan Renne
Postdoctoral Researcher
Faculty of Philosophy
University of Groningen
The Netherlands
David Schlangen
Assistant Professor
Department of Linguistics
University of Potsdam, Germany
Reinhard Muskens
Associate Professor
Department of Philosophy & TiLPS
Tilburg University
The Netherlands
Roman Kuznets
Postdoctoral Researcher
Institute of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics
University of Bern, Switzerland
Paul Dekker
Assistant Professor Language and Logic
Institute for Logic, Language and Computation
Universiteit van Amsterdam
Kees van Deemter
Reader
Computing Science Department
University of Aberdeen
Glyn Morrill
Lecturer
LSI (Software Department)
Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya
Renate Schmidt
Reader
School of Computer Science
The University of Manchester
Richard McKinley
Research Fellow
Institute of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics
University of Bern, Switzerland
Thomas Strahm
Assoziierter Professor
Institute of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics
University of Bern, Switzerland
Boris Konev
Lecturer
Department of Computer Science
Liverpool University
Bob Coecke
EPSRC Advanced Research Fellow
University Lecturer of Quantum Computer Science
Oxford University Computing Laboratory
University of Oxford
Nikos Tzevelekos
Postdoctoral Research Assistant
Oxford University Computing Laboratory
University of Oxford
Francesca Poggiolesi
Postdoctoral Researcher
Vrije University of Brussels
Belgium
Harrie de Swart
Emeritus Professor Logic and Language Analysis
Tilburg University
The Netherlands
Mehrnoosh Sadrzadeh
EPSRC Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Oxford University Computing Laboratory
Wolfson College
Ross Duncan
EPSRC Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Oxford University Computing Laboratory
University of Oxford
Carsten Lutz
Professor of Computer Science
Universität Bremen, Germany
Werner Nutt
Professor of Computer Science
Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy
Diego Calvanese
Associate Professor of Computer Science
Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy
Riccardo Rosati
Associate Professor of Computer Science and Engineering
Sapienza Universita' di Roma, Italy
Tadeusz Litak
Research Associate
Department of Computer Science
University of Leicester
Andrew Joseph McCarthy
Research Fellow and Tutor in Logic
Keble College
University of Oxford
Elias Thysse
Lecturer
Faculty of Humanities/Department of Philosophy
Tilburg University, The Netherlands
Manfred Kerber
Senior Lecturer
Computer Science
University of Birmingham
Mary-Anne Williams
Professor
Director, Innovation and Enterprise Research Laboratory
Center for Quantum Computing and Intelligent Systems
University of Technology, Sydney, Australia
Patrick Allo
Postdoctoral Fellow (FWO)
Centre for Logic and Philosophy of Science
Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium
Patrick Blackburn
Directeur de Recherche
INRIA, Nancy, France
Antony Galton
Reader in Knowledge Representation
School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics
University of Exeter, UK
Massimo Poesio
Professor in Humanities Computing
Center for Mind/Brain Sciences
Universita' di Trento
Rovereto (TN), Italy
Enrico Franconi
Professor in Computer Science
Free University of Bozen-Bolzano
Bozen-Bolzano, Italy
Gabriella Pigozzi
Research Associate
Individual and Collective Reasoning
Computer Science and Communication
University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg
Artur d'Avila Garcez
Reader in Computing
City University London
Kevin Leyton-Brown
Associate Professor
Department of Computer Science
University of British Columbia
Vancouver, BC, Canada
Richard Booth
Research Associate
Individual and Collective Reasoning
Computer Science and Communication
University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg
Rick Nouwen
Senior Research Fellow
Utrecht Institute for Linguistics OTS
University of Utrecht
Gerhard Lakemeyer
Professor
Computer Science
RWTH Aachen University
Jerome Lang
Senior Researcher
LAMSADE
CNRS and Université Paris-Dauphine, France
Raffaella Bernardi
Faculty of Computer Science
Free University of Bozen-Bolzano
Thomas Schneider
Research Associate
School of Computer Science
University of Manchester
Alex Lascarides,
Reader, School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh
Nicholas Asher
Director of Research, IRIT
CNRS
Patrice Caire
Research Assistant, PhD candidate
Individual and Collective Reasoning
Computer Science and Communication
University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg
Alessandra Russo
Senior Lecturer
Department of Computing
Imperial College London
Rosella Gennari
Faculty of Computer Science
Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy
Dmitry Shkatov
Lecturer
School of Computer Science
University of the Witwatersrand
Johannesburg, South Africa
Guillaume Aucher
Postdoctoral Researcher
Computer Science and Communication
University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg
Ian Pratt-Hartmann
School of Computer Science
Manchester University
Manchester M13 9PL
Alessio Lomuscio
Reader in Logic for Multi-Agent Systems
Department of Computing
Imperial College London
Ellen Gurman Bard
Reader
School of Philosophy, Psychology, and Language Sciences
University of Edinburgh
Edinburgh EH8 9AD, UK
Adam Wyner
Visiting Researcher
Leibniz Center for Law
University of Amsterdam
Valentin Goranko
Associate Professor
Section Algorithms and Logic
Department of Informatics and Mathematical Modelling
Technical University of Denmark
Alessandro Artale
Lecturer at the Faculty of Computer Science
Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy
Natasha Alechina
Associate Professor
School of Computer Science
University of Nottingham
Guillermo Ricardo Simari
Dep. of Computer Science and Engineering
Universidad Nacional del Sur,
Bahia Blanca, Argentina
Margaret Laing
Linguistics and English Language
School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences
University of Edinburgh
Mits Ota
Reader
School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences
University of Edinburgh
Luis Lamb
Associate Professor
Deputy Dean
Institute of Informatics
Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul
Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil
Daniel Wedgwood
Teaching Fellow, Linguistics and English Language
School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences
University of Edinburgh
Tim Fernando
Lecturer, Computer Science Department
Trinity College Dublin
Joost-Pieter Katoen
Professor in Software Modeling and Verification
RWTH Aachen University
Marcus Kracht
Professor for Theoretical Computational Linguistics
University of Bielefeld, Germany
Marcello D'Agostino
Professor of Logic and Philosophy of Science
Dean of the Faculty of Humanities
Department of Human Sciences
University of Ferrara, Italy
Sebastiaan Terwijn
Assistant Professor
Department of Mathematics
Radboud University Nijmegen
Anni-Yasmin Turhan
Postdoctoral research and teaching Assistant
Computer Science Department
Dresden University of Technology
Alessandro Mosca
Faculty of Computer Science
Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy
Marcelo Finger
Assistant Professor
Computer Science Department
University of Sao Paulo, Brazil
João Marcos
Associate Professor
Group for Logic, Language, Information, Theory and Applications (LoLITA)
Department of Informatics and Applied Mathematics (DIMAp)
UFRN, Brazil
Alexandre Costa-Leite
Lecturer, Department of Philosophy
University of Brasilia, Brazil
Francisco Antonio Doria
Professor of Communications, Emeritus
Room F 108, COPPE/Fed. Univ. at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Rodrigo Reis Lastra Cid
Member of the Study Group on Analytic Philosophy (GEFA)
Mastering at the Post-Graduation Program in Logic and Metaphysics
Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Khalil Sima'an
Assistant Professor, Faculty of Exact Sciences
University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Gerson Zaverucha
Associate Professor
PESC-COPPE / Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Adolfo Gustavo Serra Seca Neto
Lecturer, Informatics Department
Federal University of Technology - Paraná (UTFPR), Brazil
Simon King
Reader, School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences
University of Edinburgh
Claire Gardent
Research director
CNRS, Nancy, France
Ricardo Pereira Tassinari
Assistant Professor, Faculty of Philosophy and Sciences
UNESP - Univ Estadual Paulista, Brazil
Regivan Hugo Nunes Santiago
Associate Professor
Group for Logic, Language, Information, Theory and Applications (LoLITA)
Department of Informatics and Applied Mathematics (DIMAp)
UFRN, Brazil
Hykel Hosni
Postdoc, Centro di Ricerca Matematica, E. De Giorgi
Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa (Italy)
Carlos Caleiro
Assistant Professor, Department of Mathematics
IST, TU Lisbon, Portugal
Décio Krause
Associate Professor
Department of Philosophy
Federal University of Santa Catarina
FlorianÃ"polis, SC - Brazil
Ana Teresa Martins
Associate Professor
Computer Science Department
Federal University of Ceará, Brazil
Marco Aiello
Associate Professor
University of Groningen
The Netherlands
João Leite
Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science
New University of Lisbon, Portugal
Ruy de Queiroz
Associate Professor
Centro de Informática
Universidade Federal de Pernambuco
Recife, PE, Brazil
Mehdi Dastani
Intelligent Systems Group
Department of Information and Computing Sciences
Faculty of Science
Utrecht University
Maurice Pagnucco
Associate Professor
School of Computer Science and Engineering
The University of New South Wales
Sydney NSW 2052 Australia
Renata Wassermann
Associate Professor
Department of Computer Science
University of São Paulo, Brazil
Andrzej Wiśniewski
Professor
Chair of Logic and Cognitive Science
Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland
Gregory Wheeler
Senior Research Scientist
Department of Computer Science,
New University of Lisbon, Portugal
Luis Moniz Pereira
Professor
Computer Science Dept. and AI Centre
New University of Lisbon, Portugal
Laure Vieu
Chargee de Recherche
CNRS-IRIT, Toulouse, France
Heinrich Wansing
Professor of Philosophy of Science and Logic
Dresden University of Technology, Germany
Ivan Varzinczak
Post-doctoral Researcher
Meraka Institute, CSIR
Pretoria, South Africa
G. Aldo Antonelli
Professor of Philosophy
University of California, Davis, USA
Yde Venema
Associate Professor
Institute for Logic, Language and Computation
Universiteit van Amsterdam
Horacio ArlÃ"-Costa
Associate Professor
Carnegie Mellon University, USA
Colin Howson
Professor of Philosophy
University of Toronto, Canada
Margaret Morrison
Professor of Philosophy
University of Toronto, Canada
James Delgrande
School of Computing Science
Simon Fraser University, Canada
Oliver Kutz
Research Fellow
SFB/TR 8 Spatial Cognition
University of Bremen, Germany
Meghyn Bienvenu
Postdoctoral Researcher
University of Bremen, Germany
Jerzy Pogonowski
Professor
Department of Applied Logic
Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland
Sven Ove Hansson
Professor
KTH (Royal Institute of Technology)
Stockholm, Sweden
Harry Bunt
Professor
Department of Computer and Information Sciences
Tilburg University, Netherlands
Ondrej Majer
Senior Resercher
Inst. of Philosophy
Academy of Sciiences of the Czech Republic
Czech Republic
Anna GavarrÃ"
Lecturer
Departament de Filologia Catalana
Universitat AutÃ"noma de Barcelona
José Alferes
Associate Professor
Department of Computer Science
New University of Lisbon, Portugal
Giacomo Bonanno
Professor
Department of Economics
University of California, Davis, USA
Justine Cassell
Professor & Director
Center for Technology and Social Behavior
Northwestern University, USA
Francis Jeffry Pelletier
Canada Research Chair in Cognitive Science [Emeritus]
Professor of Philosophy
Professor of Linguistics
Simon Fraser University, Canada
Francisco Miraglia
Professor of Mathematics
Institute of Mathematics and Statistics
University of Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo, Brazil
Nick Bezhanishvili
Research Associate
Department of Computing
Imperial College London, UK
Clemens Kupke
Research Associate
Department of Computing
Imperial College London, UK
Christian List
Professor of Political Science and Philosophy
Departments of Government and Philosophy
London School of Economics, UK
Yaroslav Shramko
Professor of Logic and Philosophy
Kryvyi Rih State Pedagogical University, Ukraine
Konstantin Korovin
Royal Society University Research Fellow
School of Computer Science
University of Manchester, UK
Philippe Muller
Maitre de Conférences, Computer Science,
IRIT, University of Toulouse, France
Andreas Herzig
Directeur de Recherche CNRS
IRIT, University of Toulouse, France
François Schwarzentruber
PhD Student
IRIT, University of Toulouse, France
James Hawthorne
Associate Professor
Dept. of Philosophy
University of Oklahoma, USA
Margarita Korovina
Research Fellow
University of Manchester
Urszula Wybraniec-Skardowska
Professor
Autonomous Section of Applied Logic and Rhetoric
PoznaÅ„ School of Banking, Faculty in ChorzÃ"w, Poland
Philip Kremer
Associate Professor
Director of Graduate Studies
Department of Philosophy
University of Toronto, Canada
Wojciech Buszkowski
Professor
Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science
Adam Mickiewicz University
Poznan, Poland
Franz Dietrich
Ludwig Lachmann Fellow
Philosophy Department
London School of Economics
& Assistant Professor
Economics Faculty
Maastricht University
TarcÃ-sio Genaro Rodrigues
Masters Student
Institute of Philosophy
Centre for Logic Epistemology and the History of Science (CLE)
State University of Campinas (Unicamp), Brazil
Jacek Malinowski
Editor-in-Chief of Studia Logica
Professor of Logic at Institute of Philosophy and Sociology
Polish Academy of Sciences, Warszawa
Professor at Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun
Valeria de Paiva
Search Analyst
Cuil, Inc.
Menlo Park, CA, USA
Rosalie Iemhoff
Assistant Professor
Department of Philosophy
Utrecht University
Arnold Koslow
Professor of Philosophy
The Graduate Center, CUNY, USA
Pavlos Peppas
Associate Professor
Dept of Business Administration, Greece
Hans Rott
Professor of Philosophy
University of Regensburg, Germany
Hartmut Fitz
Assistant Professor
Center for Language and Cognition Groningen
University of Groningen, The Netherlands
Jessica Wilson
Associate Professor
Department of Philosophy
University of Toronto, Canada
Abhaya Nayak
Senior Lecturer
Department of Computing
Macquarie University, Australia
Balder ten Cate
Postdoctoral scholar
University of California, Santa Cruz, USA
Sergei Odintsov
Leading Researcher
Sobolev Institute of Mathematics
Novosibirsk, Russia
Jair Minoro Abe
Full Professor - Paulista University & University of Sao Paulo
Sao Paulo, Brazil
Mehmet Orgun
Professor
Department of Computing
Macquarie University
Sydney, NSW, Australia
Jan Rutten
Professor of Theoretical Computer Science
CWI Amsterdam
Radboud University Nijmegen
The Netherlands
Elena Marchiori
Associate Professor of Computer Science
iCIS - Radboud University Nijmegen
The Netherlands
Vivek Nigam
Postdoctorate Researcher
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, USA
Nicola Guarino
Senior Researcher
ISTC-CNR, Institute for Cognitive Sciences and Technologies
Editor in Chief, Applied Ontology
President, International Association for Ontology and its Applications
Trento, Italy
Patrick Saint-Dizier
IRIT-CNRS Toulouse
France
Andrea Bracciali
RA at ISTI-CNR Pisa
Italy
Luca Tummolini
Researcher
Istituto di Scienze e Tecnologie della Cognizione (ISTC-CNR)
Roma, Italy
Andrea Bianchi
Researcher
Department of Philosophy
Universotà degli Studi di Parma, Italy
Mirna Dzamonja
Reader
School of Mathematics
University of East Anglia
Mai Gehrke
Chair of Algebra
Institute of Mathematics, Astrophysics, and Particle Physics
Radboud University Nijmegen
Roy Dyckhoff
Senior Lecturer
School of Computer Science
University of St Andrews
Juliana Bueno-Soler
Post-Doc Researcher
Department of Computer Science
University of São Paulo
São Paulo-SP, Brazil
Walter Carnielli
Professor
Department of Philosophy and
Centre for Logic, Epistemology and the History of Science-CLE
State University of Campinas (UNICAMP)
Campinas-SP, Brazil
Nazareno Aguirre
Assistant Professor
Department of Computer Science, FCEFQyN
Universidad Nacional de RÃ-o Cuarto
RÃ-o Cuarto, CÃ"rdoba, Argentina
Marcelo Esteban Coniglio
Associate Professor
Department of Philosophy and
Centre for Logic, Epistemology and the History of Science-CLE
State University of Campinas (UNICAMP)
Campinas-SP, Brazil
Karl Schlechta
Professor of Computer Science
Marseille University, France
Daniel Leivant
Professor of Computer Science
School of Informatics and Computing
Indiana University Bloomington, USA
Guido Boella
Associate Professor
Dipartimento di Informatica
Università di Torino, Italy
Charles McCarty
Professor of Philosophy
Adjunct Professor of Computer Science
Indiana University, Bloomington, IN USA
Board of Directors
Obiter Research, Champaign, IL USA
Lefteris Kirousis
Professor
Department of Computer Engineering and Informatics
University of Patras
Patras, Greece
Dirk Van Gucht
Professor of Computer Science
School of Informatics and Computing
Indiana University Bloomington, USA
Katalin Bimbo
Assistant Professor
Department of Philosophy
University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada
Phan Minh Dung
Professor of Computer Science
Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand
Paolo Baldan
Associate Professor
Department of Pure and Applied Mathematics
University of Padova, Italy
Tristan Henderson
Lecturer
School of Computer Science
University of St Andrews, UK
Nicolas Maudet
Lecturer
LAMSADE, Univ. Paris-Dauphine, France
Jason Baldridge
Assistant Professor
Department of Linguistics
The University of Texas at Austin, USA
Jan P. de Ruiter
Professor
Department of Psycholinguistics
Bielefeld University, Germany
Szabolcs Mikulas
Lecturer
Department of Computer Science and Information Systems
Birkbeck College, University of London
Luigi Mittone
Professor
Head of the Computable and Experimental Economics Laboratory (CEEL)
Department of Economics, University of Trento
Katrin Erk
Assistant Professor
Department of Linguistics
The University of Texas at Austin, USA
Andreas Doering
Departmental Lecturer
Oxford University Computing Laboratory
Oxford University, UK
Staffan Larsson
Researcher
Department of Philosophy, Linguistics and Theory of Science
University of Gothenburg, Sweden [TOP]
Letter from the Philosophy Dept, Birkbeck College, University of London [return to contents]
Dear Principal,
PROPOSED ARTS AND HUMANITIES RESTRUCTURING AT KING’S
All of us in the Department of Philosophy here at Birkbeck have been dismayed to learn of the current proposals to dismiss some faculty and to restructure departments at King’s College. We write to express our very deep concern, and our hope that King’s can be persuaded not to implement these proposals, which we consider to be extremely damaging to the future of philosophy in London. Our concerns include the following six points.
(1) Philosophy in London is unusual in that the philosophy departments of King’s, UCL, Heythrop and Birkbeck pursue a policy of intercollegiate cooperation in teaching at BA, Masters and PhD levels. Intercollegiate cooperation in research also strengthens us all, since the colleges have between them a pool of philosophical expertise and excellence that cannot be matched by individual departments elsewhere in the UK. Thus if philosophy at the outstanding King’s department is damaged, philosophy across London is damaged also.
(2) The restructuring proposals as we understand them are predicated on the need to ensure the financial survival of the School of Humanities at King’s. We realize of course that economies must be made when funding from the Government is reduced, but we do not see the need for the action that is contemplated. The proposals call for the dismissal of 22 members of the faculty, without any allowance being made for natural attrition over the next two or three years. Moreover, six new appointments are to be made, just as the 22 are being dismissed. We are not alone in suspecting that the 22 are being dismissed, not from financial necessity, but because managers believe that these colleagues do not fit in well with the new strategic direction they desire for the School of Humanities.
(3) It seems to us to be an unprecedented breach of faith with its faculty if King’s dismisses academics, not because it is financially necessary, but because a change of strategic direction is thought desirable. British academics, who no longer have tenure under the law, must look to their universities not to dismiss them except when this is absolutely necessary. King’s has hitherto had an excellent reputation as a good employer in this regard; it ought now to honour its obligations to the scholars who took up their posts at King’s in good faith.
(4) Universities have frequently taken the opportunities presented by vacancies and new posts to change direction. But the notion that academics’ continued employment should depend on whether their research fits a template laid down by the central administration (and laid down, we gather, without detailed prior consultation with the faculty) is another extraordinary departure from previous practice in leading universities. It is, moreover, a departure that completely mistakes the nature of academic inquiry. Scholars need to be free to investigate the questions that seem to them most important without worrying whether, in doing so, they may be diverging from their institution’s ‘strategic direction’. You say that your plan is motivated by the laudable ambition of raising yet further King’s already high standing in humanities research. If implemented, however, your plan is certain to lower that standing.
(5) We know that many colleagues in other philosophy departments, here and abroad, consider the restructuring plans to be both unfair and ill-considered. The word has already spread throughout the philosophical world that King’s College London is a ‘toxic employer’; no philosopher with options is remotely likely to take up a post with you. (And it is hard to see why this attitude will be confined to philosophers.) This will clearly disadvantage your college and its students.
(6) Finally, a remark on academic freedom. If a university’s managers may dismiss scholars because their research does not fit a centrally specified template, then academic freedom is at an end. We hope that the managers at King’s will remember it is a university they are managing. However rich and historically distinguished an institution may be, if there is no academic freedom in it, it is not a university.
The Department of Philosophy,
Birkbeck College,
University of London
Dorothy Edgington FBA
Miranda Fricker
Michael Garnett
Ken Gemes
Anil Gomes
Anthony Grayling
Samuel Guttenplan
Jennifer Hornsby
Keith Hossack
Susan James
Oystein Linnebo
Sarah Patterson
Charlie Pelling
Harry Platanakis
Anthony Price
David-Hillel Ruben
Ian Rumfitt
Barry Smith [TOP]
Letter from Nicholas Shea [return to contents]
Prof Jan Palmowski
Head of School of Humanities
King's College London
Strand, London WC2R 2LS
Dear Professor Palmowski
Re: Proposed reorganisation of the Humanities School
I am writing as a King’s College alumnus to register a strong protest at your plans for reorganisation of the Humanities School. I write with particular knowledge of the Philosophy Department, where I completed my PhD. I was shocked to learn that Prof Shalom Lappin and Dr Wilfried Meyer-Viol are to be made compulsorily redundant, and that Prof Charles Travis is to be forced into retirement, contrary to the basis on which he was employed.
As a PhD student at King’s I was taught by both Prof Lappin and Dr Meyer-Viol. Dr Lappin’s lectures in philosophy of language were simply outstanding, and formed an absolutely central part of the philosophy course for students studying any of the main philosophical subjects. The seminars given by Dr Meyer-Viol that I attended were, if anything, concerned with even more central philosophical topics, dealing with my own areas of interest in philosophy of mind. These redundancies will clearly detract from the quality of the Philosophy Department’s offering. They are also short-sighted in the light of the increasing importance of computational linguistics as a discipline, both within philosophy, and within the wider world.
My most serious concerns are for the long-term health of the Philosophy Department. King’s has an excellent Department, which has been built up through consistent hard work and dedication by many individuals over very many years. King’s College as a whole is not usually recognised as being in the top flight of research institutions in the country, but Philosophy has been a notable exception. When I have been asked by prospective graduate and undergraduate students where they should study philosophy, I have been able to give King’s a very high recommendation.
I fear that restructuring the Department in the way you propose, starting with compulsory redundancies for a few, and hanging the threat of further redundancies over the many, will serve to destroy morale, deter prospective students and significantly weaken the strength of the Department in the long term. This cannot but be felt as a body blow by all those King’s philosophers who have spent so much time striving for the excellence of the Department through their research, teaching, mentoring and administration.
I realise that financial exigencies will necessitate tough and unpleasant measures. However, I cannot believe that doing such long-term damage to your outstanding Philosophy Department can possibly be in the long-term interests of the Humanities School, or of the College in general. In the hope that you will reconsider your plans in the light of a dawning realisation of their disastrous consequences, I urge you to revisit your plans for the restructuring of the Humanities School and to reinstate the three academics in the Philosophy Department who you have treated so badly.
Yours sincerely
Dr Nicholas Shea [TOP]
Letter from the members of the Linguistics and Philology section of the British Academy [return to contents]
George Hewitt FBA
Professor of Caucasian Languages
Chairman of the Linguistics and Philology Section (H4)
British Academy
9 February 2010
To Professor Rick Trainor, Principal of King’s College London
cc.
Professor Keith Hoggart (Vice-Principal, Arts and Science)
Professor Jan Palmowski (Head of Arts and Humanities)
Mr. Chris Mottershead (Vice-Principal, Research and Innovation)
Lord Douro (Chairman of Council)
Dear Professor Trainor,
As members of the Linguistics and Philology section of the British Academy, we are writing to express our deep concern at the swiftly unfolding situation within King’s College London. As we understand it, the programme currently underway across both Science and Humanities faculties involves redefining research missions of these schools under thematic areas that explicitly exclude linguistics. As senior members of the UK academic community, we fully appreciate the difficult and uncertain situation in which all institutional heads currently find themselves. We know this is not a time for casual negativity about the way in which senior managers go about their onerous and difficult task. Nevertheless, we feel that serious mistakes are being made in the plans being pushed through at KCL which threaten to have disastrous consequences for the entire UK academic community if they are allowed to proceed.
At the outset, we take it as uncontentious that interdisciplinarity is a direction urgently needed in the current climate: this point is emphasised right across funding bodies, both national and international. But this makes the decision to target linguists in the new Humanities and Informatics Schools seem extraordinary. Linguistics is arguably the clearest example of a domain that is multi-disciplinary (spanning humanities, social and cognitive science, medicine and computer science), and one that is recognised as having very rich potential for intellectual and commercial development. To illustrate this, we draw your attention to two letters you have received: one from the flourishing and globally influential FOLLI, the other from 335 signatories drawn from 6 different disciplines. The FOLLI annual summer school brings together professional logicians, computer scientists, and linguists for graduate teaching, research training and research workshops, a forum for highly successful international collaboration. These 335 signatories draw to your attention that the humanities and
social sciences on a worldwide basis hire increasing numbers of computationally-orientated language specialists each year, all these requiring linguistic skills of a broadly theoretical sort. What this means for the current KCL proposals is that, in determining that the Philosophy Department discontinue all its strengths at the interface of philosophy and linguistics, KCL is undermining its own interdisciplinary strengths. (As you know all too well, the Philosophy Department is one of your brightest star departments, a department whose deservedly very strong reputation rests in considerable measure in its innovativeness in extending to include such cross-disciplinary links.) Not only this, but in removing linguists from other departments, KCL is destroying their potential as well to develop in similar ways.
Since this decision is so puzzling, we would therefore like to know:
(1) What procedures led you to target computational linguistics and linguistics more generally? Was this a management-led decision? What criteria were applied to make this selection? To what extent was there consultation with relevant members of staff at KCL?
We fear we have the answer at least to the last of these questions, for in the particular cases brought to our attention, all are researchers doing substantial work that is explicitly interdisciplinary. Lappin is a highly esteemed linguist and philosopher whose work spans a large number of disciplines including philosophy of linguistics and computational linguistics. Meyer-Viol is a logician who publishes in logic, in formal grammar, and in interfaces of syntax and semantics, the formal architect of the Dynamic Syntax framework developed primarily within the KCL Philosophy Department. (This framework is attracting increasing attention in international circles with plenary invitations at UK, European and US venues.) Ginzburg works in an applied logic framework (Type Theory with Records) where his work in collaboration with researchers in Sweden is contributing to transforming our understanding of the nature of language (g-index 42, h-index 21, a robust indication of the international recognition his research receives). That you could envisage targeting such clear contributors to interdisciplinary research suggests that there was not sufficient background work done with relevant members of staff before approaching these individuals. Any linguist could have told you of the striking potential which linguistics research in general and these individuals in particular provide in fostering interdisciplinarity of a high order.
Our concerns are, however, wider than merely the linguistic, since these moves are made as an instance of a broad procedure affecting the entire academic community. Initiating movements to give people notice is going on in the Arts and Humanities School in parallel with supposed department-level consultation. Individuals targeted to be already in the consultation phase leading up to their proposed redundancy were in fact informed of the beginning of this process prior to the circulation to academic staff of the associated restructuring-consultation document. This is understandably causing genuine anxiety to everyone in the institution, and accordingly we would like clarification of the following questions:
(2) What exact appeal procedures are in place? How are they related to a supposedly prior process of institution-level consultation? What are the terms of reference of such appeals?
Knowing the answers to all these questions is of vital importance since all academics in the Arts and Humanities School have already been told that they are in effect “at risk of redundancy”, even though the restructuring consultation process is only now beginning to take place. This sets a very dangerous precedent for the development of the UK university system.
These procedures, if they are allowed to go ahead, have the potential to threaten the academic life of the entire UK academic community. Our worry is that the actions you are proposing, together with the storm of international protest they are generating, will give rise to an undeniable perception that academic posts in Britain are insecure. This will make it difficult to recruit leading international scholars to Britain at all levels, a matter of alarm to us all. We would, therefore, like to know:
(3) What strategy will you be implementing in order to contain the present regrettable PR disaster?
We look forward to answers to our questions. But in the meantime, we urge you to step back from the procedures so far promoted and reconsider the manner and content of the management decisions you are making before your highly respected institution causes extremely serious damage not only to its own credibility and international reputation but to academic life in Britain in general.
Yours sincerely,
Professor G. Hewitt, FBA
Professor of Caucasian Languages, School of Oriental and African Studies
Honorary Fellow of the Abkhazian and Circassian Academy of Sciences
on behalf of:
Anderson, Professor J M, FBA
Emeritus Professor of English Language, University of Edinburgh
Clahsen, Professor H, FBA
Professor of Linguistics, University of Essex
Cooper, Professor R H, FBA
Professor of Computational Linguistics, Göteborg University
Corbett, Professor G G, FBA
Distinguished Professor of Linguistics, University of Surrey
Crystal, Professor D, OBE, FBA
Honorary Professor of Linguistics, University of Wales, Bangor
Higginbotham, Professor J T, FBA
Linda Hilf Chair in Philosophy, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Linguistics, and Chairman of Linguistics, University of Southern California
Holes, Professor C D, FBA
Khalid bin 'Abdullah Al-Sa'ud Professor for the Study of the Contemporary Arab World, University of Oxford
Hudson, Professor R A, FBA
Emeritus Professor of Linguistics, University College London
Kempson, Professor R.M., FBA
Emeritus Professor of Linguistics, King’s College London
Khan, Professor G A, FBA
Professor of Semitic Philology, University of Cambridge
Laver, Professor J D M H, CBE, FRSE, FBA
Emeritus Professor of Speech Sciences, Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh
Leech, Professor G N, FBA
Professor Emeritus of Linguistics and English Language, University of Lancaster
Lepschy, Professor G C, FBA
Honorary Professor, University College, London
Lyons, Professor Sir John, FBA
Honorary Fellow of Trinity Hall, University of Cambridge.
Maiden, Professor M D, FBA
Professor of the Romance Languages, University of Oxford
Marslen-Wilson, Professor W D, FBA
Director, MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Cambridge
Morpurgo Davies, Professor A E, FBA, Hon DBE
Diebold Professor Emeritus of Comparative Philology, University of Oxford
Pullum, Professor G K, FBA
Professor of General Linguistics and Head of Linguistics and English Language,
University of Edinburgh
Pulman, Professor S G, FBA
Professor of Computational Linguistics, Oxford University
Roberts, Professor I G, FBA
Professor of Linguistics, University of Cambridge
Sims-Williams, Professor N J, FBA
Professorial Research Associate, School of Oriental and African Studies
Sims-Williams, Professor P P, FBA
Professor of Celtic Studies, Aberystwyth University
Smith, Professor N V, FBA
Emeritus Professor of Linguistics, University College London
Steedman, Professor M J, FBA
Professor of Cognitive Science, School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh
Stone, Dr G C, FBA
Emeritus Fellow of Hertford College, Oxford
Trudgill, Professor P J, FBA
Honorary Professor of Sociolinguistics, University of East Anglia
Vincent, Professor N B, FBA
Mont Follick Professor of Comparative Philology, University of Manchester
Wells, Professor J C, FBA
Professor of Phonetics, University College London
Williamson, Professor T, FRSE, FBA
Wykeham Professor of Logic, University of Oxford
Wilson, Professor D S M, FBA
Professor of Linguistics, University College London [TOP]
Letter of Support from Norway [return to contents]
To: Professor Jan Palmowski, Head of Humanities, KCL
Professor Rick Trainor, Principal, KCL
Professor Keith Hoggart, Vice Principal, KCL
Dear Professors Palmowski, Trainor, and Hoggart,
We write to add our voices to the international outcry against the sacking of Dr. Jonathan Ginzburg, Professor Shalom Lappin and Dr. Wilfried Meyer-Viol, and the forced retirement of Professor Charles Travis despite contractual obligations for renewal.
As philosophers and linguists, we would like to remind you that all four are researchers of the highest calibre. We are amazed that King's College would launch such a serious and self-defeating attack on its world-class expertise in formal semantics and philosophy of language.
Perhaps still more serious is the attack on the principle of security of tenure in universities and on the academic freedom that it protects.
Your actions have grave implications for the reputation of King's College London. We urge you to reconsider.
Yours sincerely,
Nicholas Allott, Research fellow, Centre for the Study of Mind in
Nature (CSMN), University of Oslo
Endre Begby, Research Fellow, Centre for the Study of Mind in
Nature (CSMN), University of Oslo
Einar Duenger Bøhn, Research fellow, Ethics programme, Dept of
Philosophy, Classics, History of Art and Ideas, University of Oslo
Lene Bomann-Larsen, Postdoctoral Fellow, Dept of Philosophy, Classics, History of Art and Ideas, University of Oslo; and affiliate of CSMN, University of Oslo
Eline Busck Gundersen, Research fellow, CSMN, University of Oslo; and assistant professor, Aarhus University
Herman Cappelen, FNA, Arche Professor, University of St Andrews,
Director of Arche; and Research Director CSMN, University of Oslo
Timothy Chan, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Centre for the Study of Mind in Nature, IFIKK, University of Oslo
Jan Terje Faarlund, Professor, Centre for the Study of Mind in Nature and Department of Linguistics and Scandinavian Studies, University of Oslo
Christel Fricke (professor of philosophy), Director of the Centre for the Study of Mind in Nature (CSMN), Department of Philosophy, Classics, History of Art and Ideas, University of Oslo
Olav Gjelsvik (Professor), Research Director, CSMN, Department of Philosophy, Classics, History of Art and Ideas, Faculty of Humanities, University of Oslo
Atle Grønn, Associate Professor of Russian Linguistics, University of Oslo
Carsten Hansen, Professor, Centre for the Study of Mind in Nature (CSMN), University of Oslo
Edmund Henden, Research Fellow, Centre for the Study of Mind in Nature (CSMN), Department of Philosophy, Classics, History of Art and Ideas, Faculty of Humanities, University of Oslo
Guðmundur Andri Hjálmarsson, Ph.D. student, Arché, University of St Andrews.
Heine A. Holmen, Ph.D. Fellow, Centre for the Study of Mind in Nature (CSMN), University of Oslo
Alison M. Jaggar, College Professor of Distinction, University of Colorado at Boulder, Philosophy and Women and Gender Studies; and Research Coordinator, University of Oslo Center for the Study of Mind in Nature
Anders Nes, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Centre for the Study of Mind in Nature, University of Oslo
Bjørn Ramberg, Professor of Philosophy and Research Coordinator, Centre for the Study of Mind in Nature, University of Oslo
Kari Refsdal, Ph.D. fellow, Centre for the Study of Mind in Nature (CSMN), University of Oslo
Kjell Johan Sæbø, Professor, Department of Literature, Area Studies and European Languages, University of Oslo
Lalaine H. Siruno, PhD Research Fellow, Centre for the Study of Mind in Nature, University of Oslo
Rachel Sterken, PhD student, Centre for the Study of Mind in Nature (CSMN), University of Oslo
Andreas Stokke, PhD Student, Arché - Philosophical Research Centre, Department of Philosphy, University of St Andrews [TOP]
Letter from the Philosophy Dept University of Sheffield [return to contents]
Dear Lord Duoro and Prof Trainor
We, the Department of Philosophy at Sheffield University, are writing to join the international protest against the proposed cuts at King’s College London.
We understand that the King’s Philosophy Department has been informed last week that Prof Shalom Lappin and Dr Wilfried Meyer-Viol face redundancy as of autumn 2010 on the basis of KCL ‘divesting itself of computational linguistics’, and that Prof Charles Travis will be forced into retirement, contrary to the contract on which he was hired in 2005.
We think that carrying out this proposal would be a major mistake. The King’s Philosophy Department is internationally recognized as excellent, both in its research and its teaching of undergraduate and graduate students, as confirmed by the RAE 2008. These three members of staff are integral to King’s high performance in research and teaching. As you will have noticed from the support these three members of staff have been given in the past two weeks by philosophers and linguists, they command very high respect from their peers. It is a hard to comprehend the College’s move to make academics of such high international standing redundant. It means that King’s will be losing out on world-class research.
Prof Lappin and Dr Meyer-Viol do not just work in computational linguistics. Their work is integral to the undergraduate curriculum and postgraduate teaching, as they provide supervision to graduate students in the field of logic, philosophy of language and philosophy of mind, as well as undergraduate teaching in logic. These are core areas of philosophy and an indispensable aspect of philosophical education. Prof Travis may have reached retirement age, but he will certainly continue producing important work in philosophy in the coming years. These three members of staff are indispensable to the current research and teaching in King’s. Making them redundant will harm undergraduate and postgraduate teaching at the College.
We also understand that all current members of staff will have to reapply for their jobs. This is demotivating and highly disruptive to the functioning of the department as an institution of research and teaching.
We protest strongly at KCL’s action. We reiterate our admiration for the King’s Philosophy Department. We urge you to reconsider your actions and to reinstate all three in the Philosophy Department.
Yours sincerely
Department of Philosophy, University of Sheffield [TOP]
Letter from Heads of Philosophy Depts in the Russell Group [return to contents]
Lord Douro, Chair of Council
Professor R. Trainor, Principal
King’s College London,
The Strand,
London WC2R 2LS
11 February 2010
Dear Lord Douro and Professor Trainor,
We, the Heads of Philosophy at Russell Group universities, were dismayed to hear that King’s College London is projecting 22 redundancies within the School of Arts and Humanities and proposing to declare all academic posts within the School at risk of redundancy. We are particularly shocked to learn that the proposal includes projected compulsory redundancies for two members of its Philosophy Department, whilst a third is being forced into retirement contrary to a previous agreement. We hope that the following considerations will encourage the College to abandon this damaging proposal.
The Philosophy Department at King’s College is one of the leading Philosophy Departments in the world. It is ranked third in the UK in the Times Higher Education’s table based on the 2008 RAE results. It is also ranked in the 2009 Leiter’s Report as an excellent department in which to study both the philosophy of language and the philosophy of mind.
The proposed redundancies of Prof. Lappin and Dr Meyer-Viol, and the decision to force Prof. Travis into retirement will have a negative impact on the Department’s cluster of expertise in these two specialisms. Prof. Travis is the author of seminal work in the philosophy of language and of mind, and he is an internationally renowned authority in these fields. Prof. Lappin is a world-leading researcher in computational semantic and natural language processing while Dr Meyer-Viol has produced important work in several branches of logic. Their expertise in the philosophy of mind and in the formal underpinnings of the philosophy of language is central to the Department’s specialisation in these areas of philosophy. Hence, the motivation given for the proposed redundancies appears misplaced. If these redundancies go ahead, King’s will divest itself of advanced logic and formal semantics which are often regarded as essential parts of the philosophy of language. If Prof Travis is forced into retirement King’s will also lose one of the most eminent philosophers of mind and language world-wide.
In this context, there is no doubt that the department’s ability to recruit and retain international postgraduate and undergraduate students will also be impacted. Besides the immediate concern with regard to the teaching of advanced formal logic, students might also be concerned about the possibility of further staff loss in the near future.
The proposal to put all academic posts at risk of redundancy, together with these planned compulsory redundancies and forced retirement, will also have far reaching negative effects on the morale of current academic staff, and on the Department’s ability to recruit internationally excellent staff in the future. The current proposal has already been widely discussed in philosophical blogs and email lists where it has been received with increased disbelief at what appears to be the short-sightedness of making cuts in areas with a proven track-record and expertise when proposing to give academic priority to new areas of untested strength. The implementation of the current proposal would certainly do irremediable damage to the reputation of the College as a place that cherishes and supports its excellent research in the Arts and Humanities, including Philosophy.
We appreciate that the sector is currently facing tough choices and that King’s College London is no exception. However, in the interest of the preservation of its centres of excellence, we would urge the College to undertake a review, in consultation with staff, students, unions and external academics, both of its provision in the Humanities and of their interdisciplinary contribution to the research undertaken in the social and natural sciences.
Yours sincerely,
Dr Alessandra Tanesini, Head, Philosophy Research Group, Cardiff University
And on behalf of:
Prof. Alex Miller Head, Department of Philosophy, University of Birmingham
Prof. Samir Okasha Head, Department of Philosophy, University of Bristol
Prof. Simon Blackburn Chair, Faculty of Philosophy Board, University of Cambridge
Prof. Andy Clark Head, Philosophy Subject Area, University of Edinburgh
Prof. Alan Weir Head, Department of Philosophy, University of Glasgow
Dr Jim Parry Head, Department of Philosophy, University of Leeds
Dr Michael McGhee Head, Department of Philosophy, University of Liverpool
Prof. Luc Bovens Head, Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method, London School of Economics
Prof. Julian Dodd Head, Discipline Area of Philosophy, University of Manchester
Dr Penelope Mackie Head, Department of Philosophy, University of Nottingham
Prof. Cynthia Macdonald Director of Research, Philosophy Research Area, Queen’s University Belfast
Prof. Martin Davies Chair, Philosophy Faculty Board, University of Oxford
Dr Daniel Isaacson Chair, Philosophy Faculty, University of Oxford
Prof. Rob Hopkins Head, Department of Philosophy, University of Sheffield
Dr Aaron Ridley Head, Department of Philosophy, University of Southampton
Prof. Paul Snowdon Head, Department of Philosophy, University College London
Prof. Quassim Cassam Head, Department of Philosophy, University of Warwick [TOP]
Special Interest Group on Discourse and Dialogue Letter in Support of Jonathan Ginzburg [return to contents]
Dear Professor Rick Trainor, Professor Jan Palmowski, Professor Keith Hoggart and Mr. C. Mottershead,
I am the current President of the Special Interest Group on Discourse and Dialogue (SIGDIAL), a special interest group of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL) and the International Speech Communication Association (ISCA). In case you are not familiar with our organization, each year we host the premiere venue for research in discourse and dialogue, encompassing everything from reasoning about beliefs, intentions and actions in dialogue interaction to the practical details of building an intelligent system capable of engaging users in conversation. In short, our venue captures everything that falls under the scope of “Applied Logic and Theory of Computation” (ALTC) and then some. We pride ourselves in bringing together researchers focused on theoretical modeling with those developing real-time conversational agents. Our venue is held in cooperation with the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) and our research papers attract the attention of not only academia but also industry (e.g., AT&T) and trade organizations (e.g., AVIOS which co-runs SpeechTek).
I am writing this letter in support of Dr. Jonathan Ginzburg. As a valued member of the SIGDIAL community, Dr. Ginzburg’s work has been influential in countless ways. I will outline a few from the perspective of an industry lab researcher who builds dialogue technologies for Microsoft (I helped to ship Voice Command 1.6, Vista Speech Recognition, Bing Mobile, and the upcoming Windows 7 phone). Dr. Ginzburg’s work on Type Theory with Records established a basis for the Information State Update approach to dialogue management, which has been used widely in spoken dialogue systems (i.e., conversational agents or intelligent systems) across the globe. Dr. Ginzburg’s work on clarification and contextual updates has challenged and inspired researchers, such as myself, who work on error-handling and misunderstandings. Although machine learning approaches have gained in popularity over the years, most researchers taking this approach (myself included) recognize that stochastic optimization and control theory can only take us so far. We need to integrate the kinds of logics Dr. Ginzburg has been innovating for decades to get closer to the dream of artificial intelligence. Dr. Ginzburg’s influence extends beyond research. As you are probably aware, he has recently played a vital role in spearheading an online journal, Dialogue and Discourse, of which he is currently Editor-in-chief. In many ways, Dialogue and Discourse is THE journal for SIGDIAL, and we look forward to seeing it flourish under Dr. Ginzburg’s leadership.
In both his research and professional activities, Dr. Ginzburg epitomizes ALTC. To contend that his research somehow fails to fit the ALTC is truly a travesty. I hope and trust that any committee formed to evaluate his fit into ALTC would do its due diligence in seeking out the opinion of researchers whose primary expertise is in applied logic with respect to conversational interaction. If you need any such references, I would be delighted to provide them. Please note that Dr. Ginzburg did not in any way influence me to write this letter. I wrote this because I have always admired Dr. Ginzburg’s research, ever since I was a graduate student. I still look to his research for vision and inspiration.
If you have any questions about this letter, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Sincerely,
Tim Paek
Researcher Machine Learning and Applied Statistics
Microsoft Research [TOP]
Letter from Glyn Morrill [return to contents]
To:
Professor Rick Trainor, Principal, KCL
12th February 2010
Professor Jan Palmowski, Head of School for Arts & Humanities, KCL
Professor Keith Hoggart,Vice Principal for Arts & Science, KCL
Mr C. Mottershead, Vice Principal for Research & Innovation, KCL
Distinguished members of King's management,
I write to you in relation to the planned restructuring of KCL, and tbe threat to
the posts of Dr. Jonathan Ginzburg, Prof. Shalom Lappin, Dr. Wilfried Meyer Viol and Prof. Charles Travis.
I am a logician, computer scientist and formal linguist , a lecturer in Barcelona.
I have known the above-mentioned scholars over many years both personally and through their work and can attest to their outstanding contributions. I am shocked to think that their posit ions have been targeted.
Indeed, the first half of last year I chose to spend my sabbatical at KCL for just
such people as these. Jonathan discussed with me the book he was completing
for Stanford Publications. Shalom was on sabbatical in Toronto writing a book
but we did meet for discussions. Wilfried gave me chapter by chapter comments on the book I was writing myself. It was a most pleasant and productive time and environment. It truly appauls me to think that KCL plans to dismantle this community.
I have worked in logic, computer science and formal linguistics for 25 years.
The book I wrote at KCL, my third, will be published by OUP this year. But
it is not easy working in a new interdisciplinary field against the backdrop of traditional academic structure. I implore you not to savage this new discipline at KCL, and to lift the threat to the positions of my distinguished colleagues in the field.
Yours sincerely,
Dr. Glyn Morrill
Lecturer
Software Department
Universitat Politcrtica de Catalunya [TOP]
Letter from the Yale Philosophy Dept [return to contents]
Dear Professor Trainor,
We, the faculty of Yale Philosophy Department, write to join the international chorus of protest at the recently announced plans for “restructuring” the School of Humanities at King’s and specifically at the treatment of our colleagues in the Department of Philosophy at King’s.
According to the information available to us, two highly distinguished faculty members Professor Shalom Lappin and Dr Wilfried Meyer-Viol are to be given redundancy notices and a third Professor Charles Travis is to be forced into retirement. The behavior of the College in respect of these distinguished philosophers appears to constitute a shocking betrayal of trust, contravening specific assurances or agreements given to Professors Lappin and Travis; and to display an astonishing ignorance of the nature and significance of their research and contribution to the Department at King’s and to the fields of Philosophy, Linguistics and Computation, as well as a lack of the kind of consultation with the King’s faculty from which such understanding might have emerged.
In addition, we understand that the entire faculty of the Department and of the School of Humanities as a whole - are to be put at risk of redundancy, being placed in the invidious position of being required to compete against one another in reapplying for a reduced number of posts. We do not ignore the financial difficulties that King’s is facing, but we can see no reason to believe that such a radical assault on the academic integrity of the Department and of the College is the only way forward. More importantly, we have considerable evidence that the individuals who will be most profoundly and cruelly affected by these actions the students and faculty of the Department and College - have been given no grounds for thinking this so.
The behavior of the College offends against all standards of just and
reasonable stewardship of an institution of higher education. It is also catastrophic for the reputation of the College in ways that can only have profound and devastating consequences for its ability to attract and retain distinguished faculty and to recruit a strong and thriving graduate body.
The Department of Philosophy at King’s is internationally recognized as excellent. We urge you not to destroy this jewel in the College’s crown. In particular, we urge that you reinstate Professor Lappin, Dr Wilfried Meyer-Viol, and Professor Travis; and that you reconsider the plan to put the Faculty as a whole on notice of redundancy.
Yours faithfully,
Michael Della Rocca
Andrew Downey Orrick Professor
Chair, Department of Philosophy
on behalf of
Katalin Balog, Associate Professor of Philosophy
George Bealer, Professor of Philosophy
Susanne Bobzien, Professor of Philosophy
Stephen Darwall, Andrew Downey Orrick Professor of Philosophy
Keth DeRose, Allison Foundation Professor of Philosophy
Tamar Gendler, Professor of Philosophy
Jonathan Gilmore, Assistant Professor of Philosophy
Karsten Harries, Brooks & Suzanne Ragen Professor of Philosophy
Verity Harte, Professor of Philosophy
Shelly Kagan, Clark Professor of Philosophy
Joshua Knobe, Assistant Professor of Philosophy
Jill North, Assistant Professor of Philosophy
Barbara Sattler, Assistant Professor of Philosophy
Zoltan Szabo, Professor of Philosophy
Bruno Whittle, Assistant Professor of Philosophy
Kenneth Winkler, Professor of Philosophy [TOP]
Letter from Alan Gibbons & Tom Maibaum [return to contents]
Subject:
Proposed redundancy of Professor Shalom Lappin
From:
"Gibbons, Alan" <alan.gibbons@kcl.ac.uk>
Date:
Mon, 15 Feb 2010 10:22:59 +0000
To:
kcl - principal <principal@kcl.ac.uk>
CC:
"Palmowski, Jan" <jan.palmowski@kcl.ac.uk>, "Hoggart, Keith" <keith.hoggart@kcl.ac.uk>
To: Principal of King's College London, Rick Trainor
Head of School for Arts and Humanities, Jan Palmowski
Vice Principal of Arts and Sciences, Keith Hoggart
Dear Principal
We are compelled to write by the extraordinary news that KCL plans to make Professor Shalom Lappin redundant, effective from September 2010. We, the undersigned, have both been Departmental Heads, while Shalom was a member of the Computer Science Department at KCL.
The news is extraordinary because it flies in the face of your avowed ambition to place KCL at the top of elite international universities. Lappin is a renowned international researcher in philosophy and computational linguistics, truly world-leading and recognised as such by star-studded institutions around the globe. Work in computational linguistics is of profound importance in an ever-growing computationally dependent society. It is a modern area of research that is likely to be taken up more and more by ambitious universities. It is a key technology enabling efficient human/machine interaction. It is, therefore, all the more surprising that you seem willing to throw out a particularly precious baby (and his siblings) with the bath water as part of your plans to handle the current funding crisis.
The treatment of Shalom appears to be especially shabby in view of the assurances he was recently given by both his Head of Department and Head of School concerning the security of his post. It was on the basis of these assurances that he stayed at KCL after being offered a distinguished, tenured, full professorship at the Hebrew University in 2009. He is at the height of his research powers with a number of major works (including two books) in the press and which the international community acknowledges with invitations to present related courses in centres of European and American excellence. It is almost too parochial to remark upon his membership of RAE panels and other national activity.
We ask you to reconsider your position with respect to Lappin’s proposed redundancy, which seems to make no academic or long term financial sense for King’s College London.
Yours sincerely,
Alan Gibbons
Professor Emeritus, KCL
Tom Maibaum
Canada Research Chair, McMaster University. [TOP]
Letter from the members of the Philosophy section of the British Academy [return to contents]
Professor Rick Trainor, Principal of King’s College London
copies to:
Marquess of Douro (Chair of Council)
Professor Keith Hoggart (Vice-Principal, Arts and Sciences)
Professor Jan Palmowski (Head of Arts and Humanities)
Mr. Chris Mottershead (Vice-Principal, Research and Innovation)
9 February 2010
Dear Principal
We the undermentioned are all Fellows of the British Academy, and members of its Philosophy Section. We are writing to you as senior representatives of the discipline of Philosophy in and from the United Kingdom to express our concern and dismay at the treatment of our colleagues in the Department of Philosophy at King’s College London,
specifically Professors Shalom Lappin and Charles Travis, and Dr Wilfried Meyer-Viol. From the information at our disposal it appears to us that these colleagues have been targeted for compulsory redundancy or enforced retirement in a manner which is arbitrary and unfair. If the course of action embarked upon is carried through, we consider it will have serious adverse consequences for the reputation of King’s College London, its Philosophy Department and the School of Arts and Humanities in particular, and may more generally damage the reputation of the United Kingdom as a location in which world-class academics wish to work and the best students wish to study.
We are fully aware that in a time of financial stringency universities have to make savings and that the jobs of academics are not sancrosanct. However it appears that in the case of these three individuals the decision to get rid of them has been made without due consultation and warning, without adequate justification for the decision, in some cases against past assurances given to the individuals in question, and in a way which can only be described as insensitive, high-handed and demeaning. The individuals were all informed of their impending redundancy or enforced retirement with inadequate prior warning. The decision to target Professor Lappin and Dr Meyer-Viol on the basis that they are primarily computational linguists ignores their actual current roles within the Philosophy Department. Both Professors Lappin and Travis had been given at least verbal assurances of the security of their positions. Whether or not these assurance were legally binding we do not presume to judge, but their violation has been enough to incur the censure of sufficiently many people close to the events that we consider the College is very likely to have acted both unfairly and unwisely.
King’s College London’s Department of Philosophy is widely regarded as one of the best in the country, being ranked 5th overall in the UK in the influential Leiter Report of January 2010. Its strengths include its breadth and its interdisciplinary connections, not least in the philosophy of language and linguistics. This makes it all the more incomprehensible that the decision has been taken to cut out one of these strengths.
We are further concerned that the requirement on all members of academic staff of the School of Arts and Humanities to reapply for their positions under the threat of redundancy is a drastic and unsettling development in the treatment of academics in the UK, hostile to all colleagues concerned, and is likely to put the best candidates off applying for positions in KCL and more generally in the country.
In the name of the profession of Philosophy in this country and abroad, we urge you and the College to reconsider the decision in the light of the widespread outcry against it, to reinstate the individuals named, and to remove the threat of redundancy to others, pending a more thorough and balanced consideration of the position of Philosophy in the College.
Yours faithfully
Professor Peter Simons FBA
Chair, Philosophy Section (H12), the British Academy
Trinity College Dublin
and on behalf of
Professor Robert Adams FBA, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and University of Oxford
Professor Simon Blackburn FBA, University of Cambridge
Professor Margaret Boden FBA, University of Sussex
Professor Sarah Broadie FBA, University of St. Andrews
Professor John Broome FBA, University of Oxford
Professor Harvey Brown FBA, University of Oxford
Professor Malcolm Budd FBA, University College London
Professor Jeremy Butterfield FBA, University of Cambridge
Professor Edward Craig FBA, University of Cambridge
Professor Dorothy Edgington FBA, University of Oxford and Birkbeck College London
Professor Jane Heal FBA, University of Cambridge
Professor Wilfrid Hodges FBA, Queen Mary, University of London
Professor Nicholas Jardine FBA, University of Cambridge
Mr John Lucas FBA, University of Oxford
Baroness O’Neill of Bengarve FBA, FRS (Hon.), University of Cambridge
Professor Jeff Paris FBA, University of Manchester
Professor Christopher Peacocke FBA, New York University and University College London
Professor Mark Sainsbury FBA, University of Texas, Austin
Professor Richard Swinburne FBA, University of Oxford
Professor Timothy Williamson FBA, University of Oxford
Professor Crispin Wright FBA, New York University and Northern Institute of Philosophy, University of Aberdeen [TOP]
Letter from Peter Saunders [return to contents]
Professor Keith Hoggart,
Vice Principal,
KCL.
Dear Keith:
I am writing to you about the decision of the College to declare Shalom Lappin redundant. He is, as you must know, a researcher with a world reputation. As it happens, there is enough overlap between his interests and my own that I can speak from personal knowledge of his work, but you hardly need me to add to what such figures as Hilary Putnam and Steve Pinker have written. The College can ill afford to lose such a scholar.
I will also not add to what has already been said about the way the College has behaved in this case, though you will appreciate that having myself been for a time Chair of an AUT local association I have followed this with considerable concern. There is also a serious threat to academic freedom if a university can decide that someone is “redundant” as defined in employment legislation because their line of research does not fit in with what those in authority happen to favour.
I would, however, remind you that the closure of the Department of Chemistry dealt a serious blow to the College. It is still the one thing people I meet outside King’s are certain to know about the College. I had thought the present management understood the damage that had been done and were trying, albeit without much success so far, to retrieve the situation, but the lesson does not appear to have been learned. What is more, this time the effect on the College's reputation is international instead of being largely restricted to the UK.
Decisions like the closure of Chemistry and the sacking of Shalom Lappin and Wilfried Meyer-Viol serve as clear warnings to those people who can find posts elsewhere that they would be well advised to. Yet these are precisely the people the College most needs to attract and retain if it is to achieve its aim of being a world class multi-faculty university.
Assuming, of course, that is really what the College wants to be.
Yours sincerely,
Peter.
Peter Saunders,
Emeritus Professor of Mathematics. [TOP]
Letter from Dafydd Gibbon [return to contents]
To:
Prof. Rick Trainor <principal@kcl.ac.uk>, Principal, King's College, The University of London,
Prof. Keith Hoggart <keith.hoggart@kcl.ac.uk>, Vice-Principal, King's College, The University of London,
Prof. Jan Palmowski <jan.palmowski@kcl.ac.uk>, Head of the School of Arts and Humanities, King's College, The University of London.
From:
Professor Dafydd Gibbon, B.A. A.K.C. (KCL) , Dr. Phil. (U Göttingen), Emeritus, Universität Bielefeld, Germany
Dear Professors Trainor, Hoggart and Palmowski,
Please find in the following a perspective by an Alumnus and Associate of King's on the planned Computational Linguistics cuts, which I have not found represented in many of the more rhetorical letters you will have received.
It is perhaps not as well recognised at King's as it should be that one of the strongest fabrics of our global Information Society, the Internet (not to mention countless digital documentation and knowledge repositories), is defined, maintained and developed by precisely this discipline. The syntax and semantics of hypertext, the logic of information retrieval, the development of Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 are inconceivable without the discipline of Computational Linguistics and related foundational disciplines in Logic and Philosophy, as well as in Computer Science. This is clearly reflected in very many industrial R&D projects, in European (EC DG INTSOC) and international funding, and in the employment policies of leading ICT companies, from Microsoft, Apple and Google through to myriads of university startups.
As an Alumnus and Associate of King's College, London (1966, German and French, AKC), as a computational linguist, and as one with decades of experience in university management, I am of course dismayed at your widely reported decision to cut the Computational Linguistics programme at King's and dismiss its senior staff. I consider the decision to be not only academically ill-advised (in view of the impeccable international scientific reputation of the staff), and socially wrong (in view of the breach of trust incurred) but also strategically and materially misguided (in view of the foundational role of the discipline in our global Information Society).
For nearly 50 years I have been proud to be a member of the King's student and alumnus communities, and have followed their development closely. King's gave me my professional start into a career of which I think I also have a right to be proud.
But the actions of King's management in cutting Computational Linguistics categorically contradict my decades of understanding of King's exemplary adherence to the highest standards of excellence, social conscience and cutting edge research in academia.
Beyond these more idealistic concerns, I ask you, with sincere concern for my alma mater: why should I - or my fellow alumni - continue to support and donate to the College in the light of such a grave and obvious management lapse, which, sadly, is now known to the world at large and threatens to destroy the previously highly ranked reputation of King's in a wide range of disciplines?
I look forward to a redressal and a transparent account of the situation.
Yours faithfully,
Prof Dafydd Gibbon, B.A., A.K.C., Dr. Phil. [TOP]
Open Letter from German Researchers [return to contents]
Prof. Rick Trainor, Principal, KCL
Prof. Keith Hoggart, Vice Principal, Arts and Science, KCL
Prof. Jan Palmowski, Head of of School for Arts and Humanities, KCL
Mr. Chris Mottershead, Vice Principal, Research and Innovation, KCL
Dear Prof. Trainor, Prof. Hoggart, Mr. Mottershead, Prof. Palmowski,
We, the undersigned researchers in Germany, want to join the protest against your recent plans to fire Prof. Shalom Lappin, Dr. Wilfried Meyer-Viol, and Dr. Jonathan Ginzburg and to force Prof. Charles Travis into retirement contrary to verbal and contractual agreements. All important points have been stated in the various letters of protest by now and thus we can only reiterate that it is incomprehensible why the administration of any academic institution would deliberately dismiss internationally renowned scholars of the highest esteem in light of the fact that this move will inevitably damage its reputation of excellence for years to come. We would like to add that it is furthermore unbearable to see that the administration seems to have chosen to keep silent despite the fact that the protests have reached an extraordinary extent, supported by many hundreds of scholars and thousands of students.
We urge you to reconsider your disastrous plans. We furthermore hope to see a statement on one of the publicly available channels soon.
Sincerely,
Gerhard Jäger
Professor of Theoretical Linguistics, Department of Linguistics, University of Tübingen
Marcus Kracht
Professor of Theoretical Computational Linguistics, Bielefeld University, Germany
Christian Ebert
Assistant Professor, Department of Linguistics, University of Tübingen
Detmar Meurers
Professor of Computational Linguistics, Universität Tübingen
Hans-Martin Gärtner
Assistant Director, Centre for General Linguistics, Berlin
Bernd Möbius
apl. Professor, Phonetics and Speech Communication, University of Bonn, Germany
Jens Michaelis
Assistant Professor, Faculty of Linguistics and Literary Studies, Bielefeld University, Germany
Thomas Hanneforth
Theoretical Computational Linguistics, Universität Potsdam, Germany
Uwe Mönnich
Professor em. of Computational Linguistics, University of Tübingen
Fritz Hamm
apl. Professor, Department of Linguistics, University of Tübingen‚
Edgar Onea
University of Stuttgart
Ingo Reich
Professor of German Studies (Semantics & Pragmatics), Saarland University, Germany
Stefan Müller
Professor of German and General Linguistics
Freie Universität Berlin
Ralf Klabunde
Professor of General Linguistics, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany
Iryna Gurevych
Professor of Computer Science, Technische Universität Darmstadt
Hans Jürgen Ohlbach
Professor of Computer Science, University of Munich, Germany
Malte Zimmermann,
Assistant Professor of Semantics and Theory of Grammar, Potsdam University, Germany
Alexander Mehler
Professor of Text-Technology, Faculty of Technology, Bielefeld University, Germany
Sabine Schulte im Walde
Senior Researcher, Department of Computational Linguistics, University of Stuttgart
Anke Holler
Professor of Linguistics, Department of German Studies, University of Goettingen, Germany
Manfred Kupffer
Goethe-University Frankfurt
Erhard W. Hinrichs
Professor of General and Computational Linguistics
Vice Dean, Faculty of Modern Languages and Literatures
Eberhard-Karls-University Tübingen, Germany
Hinrich Schütze
Chair of Theoretical Computational Linguistics
University of Stuttgart, Germany
Sigrid Beck
Professor of Linguistics, English Department, Eberhard-Karls-University Tübingen, Germany
Klaus von Heusinger
Professor of German and General Linguistics, University of Stuttgart, Germany
Frank Richter
General and Computational Linguistics, University of Tübingen, Germany
Stefan Evert
Assistant Professor of Computational Linguistics, University of Osnabrück, Germany
Caroline Sporleder
Senior Researcher, Department of Computational Linguistics, Saarland University, Germany
Regine Eckardt
Professor of Linguistics, English Department, University of Göttingen, Germany
Manfred Sailer
Seminar für Englische Philologie, University of Göttingen, Germany
Ipke Wachsmuth
Professor of Artificial Intelligence, Bielefeld University, Germany
Manfred Krifka
Professor of General Linguistics, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany
and Director of Center of General Linguistics (ZAS), Berlin
Manfred Stede
Professor of Applied Computational Linguistics, Universität Potsdam,Germany
David Schlangen
Assistant Professor, Computational Linguistics, Universität Potsdam,Germany
Stavros Skopeteas
Senior Researcher, University of Potsdam, Germany
Heike Zinsmeister
Senior Researcher, Department of Linguistics, Konstanz University, Germany
Dafydd Gibbon, B.A., A.K.C., Dr. Phil.
Emeritus Professor of English and General Linguistics, Bielefeld University, Germany
and Alumnus of King's College, London
Peter Hellwig
Emeritus of Computational Linguistics, University of Heidelberg
Carla Umbach
Computational Linguistics, University of Osnabrück, Germany
Cornelia Ebert
Institute for Linguistics, University of Stuttgart, Germany
Ralf Vogel
Professor of German Linguistics, University of Bielefeld
Anette Frank
Professor of Computational Linguistics, Heidelberg University, Germany
Andreas Witt
Senior Researcher, Institut für Deutsche Sprache, Germany
Stefan Hinterwimmer
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany
James Kilbury
Professor of General and Computational Linguistics
Heinrich Heine University, Duesseldorf, Germany
Helmut Horacek
Senior Researcher, German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence, Saarbruecken, Germany
Michael Herweg
Lecturer, Computational Linguistics, Heidelberg University
Anton Benz
Senior Researcher, Centre for General Linguistics, Berlin, Germany
Elke Teich
Prof of English Linguistics, TU Darmstadt [TOP]