ABOUT THE DEAN
Heather K. Hardy, dean of the College of Liberal Arts, is also professor of linguistics in the English department at the University of Nevada, Reno. Previously, she served as dean of liberal arts at Colorado State University. She holds a B.A. in Linguistics and English from Rice University and a Ph.D. in linguistics from UCLA (1979). From 1998-2003, she served as English department chair at Northern Illinois University, where she began teaching in 1993. At the University of North Texas, where she taught from 1981-1992, she was editor of the Southwest Journal of Linguistics for five years.

Professor Hardy is a field linguist whose research area is American Indian languages. She is co-compiler of Dictionary of the Alabama Language, a Muskogean language spoken in Texas (University of Texas Press), and has published primarily on the Alabama language and Tolkapaya Yavapai in such journals as International Journal of American Linguistics, Word, Lingua, and Southwest Journal of Linguistics. She is co-editor of Native Languages of the Southeastern United States, published in 2005 by University of Nebraska Press. Her courses have included morphology and syntax, language typology, field methods, language and gender, language in American society, language awareness, introduction to linguistics, and introduction to linguistic anthropology.