Jack's final linguistics lecture

We have reached the end of an era: Emeritus Professor Jack Chambers has decided to retire from teaching his beloved fourth-year undergraduate sociolinguistics seminar (LIN451: Urban Dialectology). Now eighty, Jack has been a part of our department for nearly fifty years; he joined us in 1970, and has often served as de facto department historian for much of the time since. (Photos by Sali and Naomi.)

His final lecture for our department took place on Thursday, April 4. Surprise guests were fellow faculty members Sali A. Tagliamonte, Suzi Lima, Yoonjung Kang, Naomi Nagy (with partner Craig), and Keren Rice (Ph.D. 1976, supervised by Jack himself).

At the end of class, to a standing ovation, undergraduate Huberta Chan and the other students gave Jack a beautiful bouquet (though they had to wait until Carlo had finished asking a critical question!).

Jack has hinted, tantalizingly, that he may well do some additional teaching at the U of T in the future, albeit not in our department. Stay tuned to find out what he's up to next!