LOT Winter School 2021 – Local Information

Local organisation

Centre for Language Studies, Radboud University Nijmegen

Contact

E-Mail: LOT-winterschool@let.ru.nl

Local Organisers

Aurora Troncoso-Ruiz (m.troncosoruiz@let.ru.nl)
Gerrit Jan Kootstra (g.kootstra@let.ru.nl)
Laura Speed (l.speed@let.ru.nl)
Mirjam Broersma (m.broersma@let.ru.nl)
Saskia Mooijman (s.mooijman@let.ru.nl)
Yachan Liang

Need help?

If you have any questions or if you need help, you can always send an email to the local organizers: LOT-winterschool@let.ru.nl. You can also contact us on Slack (the link to the slack page will be made available soon).

For teachers: there will be an informal meeting to guide you through the online platforms. This is also a good opportunity to meet the other teachers and the local organizing committee. The meeting will be held on January 5th, from 14:00-15:00. All teachers will receive a Zoom invitation via email. If you cannot attend this meeting, don’t worry: the meeting will be recorded and the instructions will be made available afterwards. 

For students: there will be an instruction video to explain the different online platforms. This video will be made available soon (we will send you an email about it). If there are any questions after watching the video, we are available to help via email or Slack.

Virtual Meeting Points

The LOT Winter School 2021 will take place online. We will use three different platforms for the Winter School. 

• Slack is our main communication platform: here, you can find all the necessary information about the courses (separate channels per course), links to the online meetings, and last-minute updates. 
• Gather.town is the online version of our campus: here, you can walk around, meet and talk to others in the café, but also go to the lecture halls, research pitch sessions, and all other activities we offer. Gather.town contains all zoom links to the online meetings.
• Zoom is used for all online sessions and courses.

Slack

The platform Slack will be used for all communication. Whether you experience technical issues, want to discuss today’s class with your classmates, or chat with the teachers; Slack is the place to get in touch with the organizers and other attendants of the Winter school. The link to the Slack workspace will be made available to you soon.

When you have joined the workspace, please update your profile so that your fellow Winter School attendants can see who you are. Go to View profile and change the following:

• Full name: Name, Institute
• Display name: Full name
• What I do: Attendee, research interests
• Profile photo: if you want, you can upload a photo of yourself here

Gather.town

Gather.town is the virtual meeting point for the Winter School. It is an interactive online setting, which allows participants to walk around, run into people and start conversations. With your own avatar, you can navigate through the Gather.town environment. Here, you will find lecture halls, the poster room, the room for the plenary talks and places to hang out and play games. In the Gather.town environment, you will also find the links to the Zoom meetings of each lecture. Thus, you should in principle be able to find your way in the winter school via gather.town. The link to the gather.town environment will be sent to you via email in the week prior to the start of the winter school.

Zoom

All classes and lectures will be streamed via Zoom. The links to the Zoom meetings can be found on Slack and Gather.town. For example, a Zoom link for one of the courses will be in the Slack channel and the Gather.town room. Here are some general tips and recommendations to make the virtual meetings as pleasant as possible for everyone:

• Be on time (i.e., make sure to enter the zoom meeting a couple of minutes before it is supposed to start)
• Please fill in your (first and last) name.
• Test audio and microphone (and video) in advance. 
• Please mute your phone.
• Please mute your microphone when listening.
• Raise your hand (virtually) when you have a question.
• Or use the chat to ask your questions.
• Switching your camera on contributes to a more personal experience for all. (Though we understand that you might choose not to, for technical or personal reasons.)
• Please do ask questions! Don’t hesitate to attract our attention.
• Please alert us if a fellow student wants to say something.

Educational and non-educational activities

Student Attendance

As per usual, attending all classes of the course you registered for is necessary. Please note that the lectures will not be recorded. For the purposes of LOT, the receipt of the course certificate is conditioned by your attendance. The class consultants will check all participants’ attendance in each class. 

Research Discussion Groups, Tuesdays and Wednesdays, 16:30-18:30

In addition to the LOT courses, there are research discussion groups (RDGs) in each week of the Winter School. These are advanced discussion groups (PhDs and above) that take place on Tuesday and Wednesday. In Week 1, Christina Bergmann and Kenny Smith will teach the RDGs. Agnieszka Konopka will give the RDG in Week 2. The RDGs will be streamed via Zoom, the links will be available on both Slack and in Gather.town.

Schultink Lecture, January 14th, 16:30-17:30

In honor of Henk Schultink, every LOT school organizes a Schultink lecture. This year’s Schultink lecture will be given by Marianne Gullberg (Lund University). The title and abstract of her talk will be announced later.

Research pitch sessions, January 11th and 18th, 16:30-18:00

The traditional poster session will also take place, but then in an online format just as all other activities. That is, instead of a poster session, you will have the opportunity to share your research with your peers and teachers by giving a short pitch presentation. The research pitch and discussion sessions are organized on the Monday of both weeks of the Winter School. The sessions will take place via Gather.town. 

Career event, Thursday January 21st, 16:30-18:30

The number of PhD graduates increased by 41% within the last decade, yet the number of faculty positions remained roughly the same. No wonder that most of the PhD graduates need to consider alternative scenarios for their professional development. But where to look for the right new job? For researchers who consider a career switch to industry, the open job market often feels as remote and uncertain as outer space. To be happy at work, you need to find a job that is aligned with your values, gives you a feeling of belonging, purpose, appreciation, and some level of both safety and excitement. There are so many conditions that need to be met to develop a sense of job satisfaction!

In this intensive and highly interactive workshop, we will host three talks from former researchers who now professionally help other researchers in transitioning to industry. Three points of view at one huge problem – it’s going to be an exciting session!

Speakers:

Dr. Danielle De La Mare works as a career wellness coach in private practice. She helps faculty who feel stuck in their careers to loosen their grip on perfectionism, people-pleasing, self-pressure, and shame so that they may find the clarity and courage to pave creative and meaningful career paths both within and outside academia. Her own career wellness journey began when she reached burnout as a tenured professor. Since then, she has found powerful tools to heal herself and others in similar situations. Danielle is the creator of the weekly podcast, Self-Compassionate Professor, which features guests who have found creative ways to re-build their careers after struggle. 

Dr. Christopher Humphrey holds a BA in English Studies and an MA in Culture and Social Change, both from the University of Southampton. He completed his PhD in Medieval Studies at the University of York in 1997, and held a post-doctoral fellowship there until 2000. Since leaving academia, Chris has worked as a project and program manager in the private sector, specializing in technology, transport, financial services and sustainability. Today, he works as a team leader and project manager for a leading European sustainable bank. 

In 2012 Chris founded the website Jobs on Toast as a way to help Masters students and doctoral graduates access the abundant career opportunities available outside of higher education. The popularity of the site is shown by the fact that Jobs on Toast attracts over 40,000 unique visitors a year, as well as having thousands of followers on social media channels including Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. 

Dr. Natalia Bielczyk is an entrepreneur, researcher, author, and philanthropist. She obtained her PhD in Computational Neuroscience at the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behavior in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. In 2018, she launched a public foundation, Stichting Solaris Onderzoek en Ontwikkeling, aiming to help early career researchers find new careers in industry. She also owns Welcome Solutions, a company developing new tools and practices to help professionals in navigating on the job market, and in finding their dream jobs. She also authored a book entitled “What Is out There For Me? The Landscape of Post-PhD Career Tracks”. In free time, she blogs at her personal blog and leads the Welcome Solutions YouTube channel.

Social activities

While it may not be possible to meet each other in person, to have a LOT dinner or to do a walking tour in Nijmegen, there will be plenty of opportunities to get to know each other in a more informal setting, for example via the café in gather.town. On top of this, we will host the following online events:

Online pub quiz, Mondays January 11th and 18th, 20:00 – 22:00

Join us for a pub quiz with a twist! In this Zoom-based quiz you’ll be assigned to teams and together you can tackle the diverse rounds of questions we have prepared for you.

Online games, Thursdays January 14th and 21st, 20:00 – 22:00

After four days of hard work and hopefully lots of inspiration, it’s time to relax, have fun, and get to know each other (even) better. We will do this by means of the quaranteambuilding game, in which you work together in a team to play a variety of fun and exciting games and quizzes.

We hope that many of you will join us in these social activities! More information and links to these activities will follow soon.