Hi folks!
This is to mourn the old times, and to prepare you for what is going to come. As you might know, there are three Lehrtühle at the Seminar für Sprachwissenschaft, partly formerly held by Uwe Mönnich, Erhard Hinrichs and Arnim v. Stechow. Except for my semester, noone will have had courses with Uwe Mönnich, but he's still around! And his position is vacant for more than a year now. It is by now official, that the first candidate on the list (John Nerbonne) has rejected his choice. How that came about (the choice and the rejection) is a totally different story, with examples of strategy and bad style.
The second person on the list is being asked right now, and although many have heard rumors who of the seven original candidates that is, it is not official. For those of you who don't know the inofficial news: You won't know him either, so it doesn't matter. For the others: I haven't heard any other rumors, so just guess that you are right. Apparently people are not allowed to make these rumors official. Whether he accepts or not, it seems that the position will be vacant for at least one more semester.
For the M.A. 2nd semester students that means no additional Hauptseminare in the Wintersemester. I haven't counted the credit points that are available from all courses, but I feel embarassed for having complained last year - considering next year's situation. We still had a choice and a chance to get the necessary points. Next semester there will be few courses, but with surprisingly many CPs (for extra work, I guess). Altogether there will be two or three block seminars, of which only one is in the Vorlesungsverzeichnis yet, the one by Sandra Kübler on Machine Learning. Definitely a good opportunity to get credits in a nice seminar.
v. Stechow's chair is vacant as well, and there won't be a replacement too soon. This time the Fachschaft has sent Aleks and Charlotte into the committee; they will know about the proceedings, but probably won't be allowed to tell
Fritz Hamm's contract couldn't be prolonged (because of university regulations). The same holds for Heike Zinsmeister (if I understood that correctly). The SFB is being closed soon, so the people around Laura Kallmeyer, who helped fill the gaps in teaching, will also have to look for something else. Hubert's good-bye party is tomorrow (See you there! As there won't be a SfS party, unfortunately). With 80-90% Frank will leave after this semester. After Zoulfia (whom most of you won't remember) and Sandra this means, there won't be any student advisor any more. This is a point where the Fachschaft needs to kick in!
Some people are already getting into trouble wanting to register for a final thesis, because Frank won't be there and there is noone else to do that. Have I forgotten anyone leaving? Well, me, but that doesn't hurt.
So what will it be like next semester?
4th semester students have already taken almost every Proseminar that's offered next semester. Semantics II won't take place for obvious reasons (unless... but I do not want to put certain people under any pressure *gg*). Today's 2nd semester students of General Linguistics will suffer from a wide lack of courses. Wolfgang Sternefeld is left as the only lecturer in GL, and Elena Bilan will offer a course on Chinese (I haven't asked her, but I believe she would rather want to continue her research).
By the beginning of next semester I believe several things will have been improved compared to today. At least in the BA courses everyone will get their credit points. All others are advised to have a look at the Germanistics and other Brechtbau departments, the Information Science etc.
The Fachschaft was held up by students of the 4th BA and 4th MA semester. We mainly organized the TaCoS. All those people will leave soon. We are leaving you a lot of money for parties, given somebody will take over the account.
Who will continue the Fachschaft? Come on, do something for yourselves! Who will take care of the new first semester students? You! And that means the 2nd semester, MA and BA. Student numbers are going down, and my semester still holds the all-time record of 18 BAs (out of 21 starters)! Those were better times, with more lecturers, more funding from the university, no fees, more parties. Not all hope is lost, though, but filling the positions again will take longer than most of you will be studying.
I wish you all the best. Keep your head up, and if you complain, do it loudly and to the right people.
Armin
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