The national conferences on African and South Asian languages and linguistics were born here. Major activities include representing general student views to the Department administration, selecting student representatives to serve on certain Department committees, selecting outside lecturers to speak before the Linguistics Club, and organizing social activities involving both students and faculty throughout the year. The Linguistic Seminar offers a weekly forum for papers presented by graduate students and faculty. The Linguistics Club is actually older in point of formal organization than is the Department of Linguistics. Normally, the Club sponsors six such lectures during the academic year.
Publications circulate for two weeks.
The Research Room also keeps collections of books for review and current job announcements. Other computers are available in the Microcomputer Lab in the basement of the Foreign Languages Building. The University of Illinois's Department of Computer Science is among the best in the world, with a growing number of well-known specialists in Artificial Intelligence. A unit within the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, the Language Learning Laboratory serves the various language departments and the Departments of the Classics, English, History, Linguistics, Philosophy, and Speech Communication, the Division of English as an International Language, the Programs in Cinema Studies, Comparative Literature, and Religious Studies, and the various area-study centers. The Laboratory has a wide range of computer, audio, and video facilities and is deeply involved in developing new technologies for language instruction.