How KU's Linguistics Department is Leveraging Faculty Expertise, Student Insights, and Career Opportunities to Update its Curriculum

For many university students, the most pressing question in the classroom isn't about the complex material itself, but rather: "Why am I learning this, and what can I do with it?".

To better answer that question and improve how students see the field, the KU Linguistics Department partnered with the Center for Teaching Excellence (CTE) to investigate data, student voices and alternate course designs.

The department recognized that demonstrating the real-world benefits of linguistics was critical for student success, and they utilized collaboration with CTE programs to make it happen.

During AY 2024-25 and 2025-26, the KU Linguistics Department applied to participate in CTE’s Ideas-to-Action (I2A) program, the department examined curriculum-wide trends, while a team of Linguistics faculty used CTE’s Course Design Institute (CDI) to make targeted, high-impact changes within individual courses.

A Coordinated Approach

The Linguistics Department tackled this challenge from multiple angles, partnering with CTE to build momentum and make change possible.

“We always enjoy collaborating with Linguistics because the department treats our programs as force multipliers: they have the collective will within the department to work together on curricular matters, but they lean on CTE expertise and support to capitalize on that willingness,” said Josh Potter, CTE’s associate director for student learning and analytics.

This partnership extended far beyond a one-time consultation. CTE staff attended faculty retreats, sat in the audience of graduating seniors’ capstone research presentations, and surveyed faculty about their instructional interests to help the department build curriculum maps around revised learning outcomes. CTE also helped conduct student focus groups to learn how undergraduates perceive their long-term career prospects in the field.

From this vantage point, the department was able to identify and implement widespread changes. They now feature drop-in modules in key, large-enrollment courses designed to explicitly show students what it means professionally to work as a linguist. Faculty transparently use rubric-based assessments linked to program-level outcomes, and senior capstones are framed around the specific learning goals they exemplify.

"On our side, we help them create momentum; on their side, they’ve built the culture they need to reliably produce results," Potter noted. The ultimate benefit to KU students is a department that functions as a true community of learners, where both students and faculty "readily understand the 'why' behind every interaction."

Uncovering the Student Perspective

One of Linguistics’ most powerful approaches involved going directly to students to learn more about what they needed.

In 2024-2025, Alison Gabriele, professor of linguistics and Chair of the Linguistics Department, alongside a team of faculty, set out to investigate a specific trend: why more students were choosing to minor rather than major in Linguistics, despite a growing range of career opportunities. To structure that inquiry, they joined CTE's Ideas-to-Action cohort.

Recognizing the need for authentic student voices, the department brought in CTE as a neutral party to conduct focus groups so students would feel comfortable providing honest feedback.

The data revealed a game-changing insight: introductory students were deciding whether to take future linguistics classes based almost entirely on their perception of how the coursework would impact their future careers. Students loved the material but needed help translating their classroom skills to the job market.

In response, Gabriele’s team collaborated to implement a strategic plan that makes real-world applications transparent:

• Hands-on Activities: Integrating linguistics into video game design, forensic analysis, branding and marketing.
• Career Partnerships: Collaborating with the KU Career Center to host professional development workshops that help students articulate their skills to employers.
• Alumni Networks: Connecting students with alumni networks and creating videos of linguistics alumni in diverse career paths to showcase potential destinations.

Gabriele added, “we are working to help students better articulate the skills that they gain in learning to conduct research in our program.”

Course-Level Collaboration: Reinventing the Classroom Experience at CDI

With the department-level insights in-hand, a team of Linguistics faculty turned to the work of applying them at the course level. 

Steve Politzer-Ahles, an assistant professor in the Department of Linguistics, joined colleagues Jeff Holliday and Hironori Katsuda in CTE’s Course Design Institute, collaborating to redesign LING 110 (Language and Mind) and LING 106.

Politzer-Ahles noted that their introductory classes previously followed a "monster of the week" format, covering topics simply because they were standard requirements. "We realized we weren't sure what exactly we wanted students to do with that," he noted. 

The team set out to fix that. They established a clear, action-oriented goal at the course level. That goal maintained that students must be able to critically evaluate everyday claims about language using scientific evidence.

To meet this goal, the team developed the "person on the street" interview project.

Students choose a linguistic question (e.g., "Do dogs have language?"), pose the question to non-linguists, identify public beliefs, and evaluate those beliefs against peer-reviewed research learned in class.

By moving away from a more traditional format, the Linguistics CDI team documented a measurable increase in students' ability to evaluate claims using evidence.

Politzer-Ahles observed that the new project allowed faculty to explicitly tell students what they were learning, giving them a clear opportunity to "see themselves doing these things". Students themselves reported that the experience successfully "made the real-world application and significance of linguistics more tangible".

By combining broad departmental inquiry and collaboration with targeted course redesigns, the Linguistics Department successfully moved from inquiry to evidence-based action.

Supported by CTE’s guidance and scholarly community, the department gained insight while exploring new ways to teach its subject matter. Today, they are deeply invested in improving how students see the field, effectively preparing them for a future where they can confidently apply their knowledge in the real world.