In 2016, the LSA continued its ongoing programs and services on behalf of its mission: to advance the scientific study of language. Highlights of new and expanded activities are outlined below:

Scholarships, Professorships, Honors & Awards

• Established a new student fellowship in honor of Ken Hale, to be awarded at the 2017 Linguistic Institute.
• Awarded six fellowships to students attending CoLang 2016.
• Awarded travel grants to two students attending the LSA Annual Meeting, under the auspices of the LSA’s Committee on Ethnic Diversity in Linguistics.
• Continued major fundraising drives to establish new student fellowships in honor of the late LSA Presidents Emmon Bach and Charles Fillmore.

Meetings, Institutes and Events

• With funding from NSF, convened a workshop for tribal college and university (TCU) faculty and students to participate in the 2017 Annual Meeting. As part of the grant, provided financial and mentoring support to 20 TCU students and faculty.
• Sponsored CoLang (the Institute for Collaborative Language Research) at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.
• Selected UC Davis as the host of the 2019 biennial summer Linguistic Institute
• Launched two new events at the 2017 Annual Meeting: “The Five-Minute Linguist” speaking contest, and the “Public Lectures on Language” series.
• Established a formal partnership to sponsor the Semantics and Linguistic Theory (SALT) Conferences.

Publications

• Published the first volume of the Proceedings of the LSA, an expansion of the “Extended Abstracts” publication based on research presented at the Annual Meeting.
• Partnered with Routledge to publish the first volume in our joint series "Guides to Linguistics," Language in Children by Eve Clark.
• Launched a new section of Language, “Research Reports” and developed new guidelines for authors on the preparation of supplemental materials.
• Published the first online article to appear in advance of the print edition of Language, with many more to come.

Public Outreach and Media Relations

• With support from NSF, sponsored language science and linguistics booths at AAAS’ Family Science Days and the USA Science & Engineering Festival. These events were attended by hundreds of thousands of students and families from the Washington, DC region.
• With financial support from linguistics departments and programs, expanded the LSA News Stories Initiative, a broad-based effort to increase coverage of linguistics research in the popular news media.
• Disseminated two new online resources for linguists on public outreach and media relations.

Professional Development and Education

• Co-organized a series of webinars on “Linguistic Entrepreneurship”, “The Job Recruitment Process from the Other Side of the Table” and “Enterprising Linguists: Careers Outside the Classroom”.
• Developed new “Guidelines for Inclusive Language,” an update of the LSA’s "Nonsexist Usage Guidelines."
• Established a new “Student Research Highlights” feature to focus attention on new publications authored by LSA student members.
• Convened a new Committee on Advanced Placement Linguistics, to develop a formal proposal to the College Board that would lead to the establishment of such a high-school course.
• Expanded a partnership with the Wiki Ed Foundation to promote the use of Wikipedia as a teaching and learning resource in linguistics classrooms.

Advocacy

• Held the LSA’s first-ever Linguistics Advocacy Day in Congress, held in conjunction with the LSA Annual Meeting in Washington, DC.
• ​Submitted comments to the United Nations on the Language Rights of the Child for consideration as part of its long-range plan for sustainable development.

Continuing Traditions

• Organized the LSA’s 90th Annual Meeting in Washington, DC .
• Continued a major expansion to its flagship journal, Language, publishing content in new online sections focused on: Teaching Linguistics, Historical Syntax, Phonological Analysis, Public Policy, and Perspectives.
• Issued a series of news releases about the latest research published in its journals and presented at its Annual Meeting, garnering significant coverage in prominent international media outlets.
• Provided financial assistance and in-kind support for linguists seeking to attend the LSA Annual Meeting and access LSA publications.
• Published a new volume of Semantics & Pragmatics, the platinum open-access journal of the LSA.
• Issued the third edition of the LSA’s Annual Report on the State of Linguistics in Higher Education.
• Hosted an open-access archive of all materials published under the auspices of eLanguage, the LSA’s scholarly digital publishing platform. The archive includes co-journal articles, book notices, extended abstracts, and conference proceedings.
• Pursued a national policy agenda to facilitate the efforts of linguists and other scientists working to benefit society, including continued federal funding for linguistics research.
• Represented linguists at national and international meetings of colleague organizations and through participation in coalitions and consortia working to advance science, the humanities, and higher education.
• Defended linguistics departments and programs against threats of cuts or elimination by contacting administrators and officials and by working behind the scenes to provide data in support of the value of linguistics.