Faculty, graduate students, and undergraduate students gathered in early December to honor the career of Professor David Rood, who is retiring this year after having been a member of the Department since 1967.
Prof. Rood's primary research has been the documentation of two endangered Native American languages, Wichita (Caddoan family, now spoken by just one person in Oklahoma) and Lakota (Siouan family, popularly called Sioux, spoken by several thousand people in the Dakotas and Canada). He is also interested in second language teaching and has authored or co-authored textbooks or sets of lessons for both these languages. In addition to his work within the Department of Linguistics at CU, he was also managing editor of the International Journal of American Linguistics (U. Chicago Press) for over 20 years.
The Department has established an undergraduate scholarship in Prof. Rood's honor. If you would like to contribute to the fund, you may do so here: http://www.colorado.edu/linguistics/donate