And only months after the heat of the controversy, the department now has a new chair for next year and two new tenured faculty.
Potebnja professor of Ukranian Philology Michael S. Flier, who will take over as new chair on July 1, said he thought the organized opposition to demoting the department affected the Faculty's decision.
"The possible threat of it dissolving immediately got all of the philologists and linguists in the campus and in the country involved," Flier said.
Flier said the two new senior appointments demonstrate "a very strong commitment and a strong signal that Linguistics is alive and well and moving on."
Some concentrators are disappointed that two junior faculty members who left at the end of this year will be replaced by only one person. But most students are satisfied not only that their department still stands, but also that efforts are being made to improve it.
"I'm definitely happy that they're keeping it a department," said linguistics concentrator Sara K. LaRoche '95. "All the students want the department to stay as a department."