Lects and the City

NWAV 34 highlights the linguistic and social issues that arise in multicultural urban centers. To this end, we are offering a variety of plenaries, panels and workshops that bring together scholars from linguistics, anthropology, sociology and education to discuss the broader implication of urban research. In addition to the cross-disciplinary events with this focus, NWAV 34 will also feature over 130 papers and thirty posters addressing research on the intersection of language and society. We hope that you will be able to join us for this exciting event, and look forward to seeing you in New York in October.

Statement regarding the Graduate Student Organizing Committee

The graduate assistants at New York University voted in 2000 to unionize. They earned the right to collective bargaining for employment benefits beginning in the Fall of 2001. That contract has expired and the NYU administration, taking advantage of a recent ruling by the National Labor Relations Board, withdrew its its recognition of the Graduate Students Organizing Committee (GSOC) and refused to allow GSOC to bargain on behalf of graduate assistants. In this current situation, the NWAV 34 Organizing Committee would like to state that we support the rights of graduate students to express and follow their views regarding the unionization of graduate assistants at New York University. Further, while we recognize the existence of a diversity of opinions on the issue of unionization, we hereby assert our support for GSOC and its efforts to achieve equitable treatment for all of NYU's graduate assistants.