Hi Doug,
Congratulations on making the next big transition!
I remember meeting you for the first time in Sept. 1993 — I was an incoming PhD student, and you were facilitating the graduate phonology seminar – the one in which we read the draft manuscripts of McCarthy & Prince, and Prince & Smolensky (1993). For me, in the course of 13 weeks, my world was changed forever … I still tell the story to my undergraduate research & writing students in 2025. What happens to you, as a researcher, when you are “transformed” by something you’ve read? Never able to see or understand the world in the same way ever again? Doug, you helped make these kinds of transformative learning experiences possible — always with academic humility, curiosity, humour, intellectual rigor, and a crazy passion for formalism.
I also remember a long lineup of grad students at your office one afternoon (~ 4pm) – we all wanted time to see you and talk more about Grounded Phonology. I think you must have been on your way home & turned and said as you fled: “Sorry, I have to go …I have to put my Dad-hat on” …and off you went …For me, you have always been a great role model — the kind of academic who managed to balance family & work …
Doug, I wish you & Anne-Marie all of the very best on this next BIG Adventure – it is sure to be a thrill – you will be missed here at UBC!
