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5-Question Profile of Lindsay Marean, InterCom Editor for CASLS.

1. What is your role at CASLS? What types of projects do you usually work on?

My focus is on CASLS' communication with language professionals. I edit InterCom, our weekly email digest, and I also manage our social media outreach.

2. What are your areas of interest/expertise?

My main passion in life is indigenous language revitalization, and my favorite thing to do is to document and help pass on my ancestral language, Potawatomi. I enjoy thinking hard about good practices for teaching and learning languages in a wide diversity of contexts: classroom instruction of dominant world languages, less-commonly taught languages where curriculum is limited or non-existent, immersion in all of its amazing possibilities, and the awe-inspiring process of sleeping languages re-awakening thanks to archived documentation and dedicated learners and teachers.

3. What do you like best about working at the University of Oregon and living in Eugene?

Outside of work I enjoy hiking, skiing, running, and whitewater boating, so Eugene is a perfect playground for me. I feel fortunate to work for an institution that also houses other impactful language programs like the Northwest Indian Language Institute, the Yamada Language Center, and the Global Scholars Hall. Something exciting is always happening in our extended community.

4. If you could have any super power, what would it be and why?

Maybe I already have a super power, but if I do, I wouldn't be able to tell you about it.

5. What is/are your favorite quote(s)?

Here's one I came across recently: “If you know your mother tongue and then you widen out to learn all the languages of the world, that’s empowerment. If you know all the languages of the world and not your mother tongue, that is not empowerment: that is enslavement.” - Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, at UMass Amherst, April 6, 2016