Spring Semester 2010

“Whan that April with his showres soote, the droughte of March hath perced to the roote...” No, it is not April yet, but the days do get longer and the nights shorter, a tell-tale sign that spring term is approaching fast. We don’t know all it has in store for us, though one thing is certain: it will be difficult to match the many highlights from last semester:  First of all, we managed an unprecedented number of 207 freshmen and -women without modifications to our teaching program, which shows that we did our homework well;

our booth at the “Nacht der Forschung” of UZH and ETH on ‘English as a world language’ met with great interest from the general public and we were grilled with questions all night; 

the symposium for Fritz Senn was a success story (we guesstimated about 60-70 participants - only to find that more than 120 people came to honour Fritz on the night!);

the “Tag der Lehre” brought us vital insights into (and feedback on) our teaching, particularly on the effects of the Bologna system (the discussions between ES Staff and students foreshadowed many of the issues brought forward by UZH students in November, and it was agreed that the FAVA will be more actively involved in organising the event in 2010);

and last but not least, three of our students won a Semesterpreis der Philosophischen Fakultät for outstanding seminar papers (Lucien Palser, Pius Meyer and Andrea Nigsch), which is wonderful news and an encouragement to all of us.

But autumn is past and spring is future, so let’s leave that memory lane and look ahead. As for personnel, the coming term is characterised by several welcomes back, farewells and rotations that concern the ES staff: Annika Bautz leaves us for good as she has accepted a tenured lecturership at the University of Plymouth (congratulations and well-deserved!), Katherine J. Williams returns as adjunct to the head of department after her maternity leave, and Martin Mühlheim, who did an outstanding job replacing her, is back as assistant (to Prof. Heusser); Adrian Rainbow will step in as Oberassistent and be replaced by Shane Walshe, who returns as lecturer for this semester. In terms of teaching, spring will see many new courses on BA and MA levels, including a fieldwork trip to Fiji; and in terms of conferences, the ES organises the invitational symposium “English as a Contact Language (ECoLa)” next June, and some of the finest linguists will come to Zurich to present their current research.  So there is much to look forward to and no need to remind you that before long spring will have “bathed every veine in swich licour, of which vertu engendred is the flour”; on this note, I wish you an enjoyable and productive spring term.

Daniel Schreier