Organizations & Presidents
Our School offers courses in language, literature, linguistics, culture, civilization, and film. We provide instruction in the target languages as well as some courses in English, in face to face, online, and blended formats, and instruction for heritage speakers of Chinese and Spanish. SLC faculty members cover a richly diverse range of research areas and have received international acclaim for their scholarship. One of SLC’s strengths lies in its offerings of classes in languages for specialized purposes. These classes equip students with the practical communication skills they will need for using the target language while studying or traveling abroad, participating in internships, or preparing for globally oriented career paths.
We are the interdisciplinary student organization for inquisitive minds interested in probing the depths of language. We create a strong support network for our members' intellectual growth. We foster mentor relationships, inform our members of linguistic research opportunities, host professionalization and educational workshops, and more. The Purdue Linguistics Association is comprised of both undergraduate and graduate students, as well as faculty members from across campus. This year, PLA co-hosts and facilitates the weekly Ling Lunches with the Linguistics Program.
Valentina Concu, SLC President
Valentina Concu is a Ph.D. student from Italy in German Linguistics at the Department of German and Russian. Her research focuses on Historical Linguistics, Grammaticalization, and Cognitive Grammar. She is currently a Graduate Instructor for German and a Tutor for Italian. She is also the President of the German Culture Club and one of the organizers of the bi-weekly German Movie Night. She also serves as Vice Chair for the Legislative Review Committee at the Purdue Graduate Student Government.
ESL GO! is a non-profit professional organization which unites people whose primary interests relate to teaching and researching English as a second or foreign language. ESL GO! was established in 2008 by graduate students in Second Language Studies/ESL at Purdue University. Second Language Studies/ESL at Purdue University is offered through the Department of English. The program features a diverse graduate student population, which creates an environment where multiple perspectives are welcomed and long held assumptions are challenged. Nationally and internationally recognized for their scholarship, faculty members specialize in second language writing, language and assessment, world Englishes, and applied linguistics.
Hadi Banat, ESL GO! President
Hadi Banat is a doctorate student in the English department specializing in second language writing, multiculturalism and writing program administration. He taught First Year Writing, English for Academic Purposes, English for Specific Purposes, Communicative English and Speech Communication in Lebanon, the United Arab Emirates and the United States.
Jenna Conklin, PLA President
Jenna Conklin is a fourth-year graduate student in Linguistics at Purdue. Her research is on the interaction of harmony and coarticulation in the phonetics-phonology interface.
