Donald Dyer
Associate Dean for Faculty & Academic Affairs and Distinguished Professor of Modern Languages
Dr. Donald L. Dyer is the Associate Dean for Faculty and Academic Affairs in the College of Liberal Arts and Distinguished Professor of Modern Languages at the University of Mississippi. He is also Co-Director for both the Arabic Language Flagship Program and the Chinese Language Flagship Program.
Research Interests
Dr. Dyer’s research interests include Slavic and Balkan linguistics, Bulgarian and the Romanian of Moldova, as well as languages in contact, and he has authored or edited over thirty-five books or volumes and over fifty journal articles.
Dr. Dyer has been recognized for his outstanding work. In 2014, he was recognized for his work as the 17th Kenneth E. Naylor Memorial Lecturer in South Slavic and Balkan Linguistics. He is currently editor of the journal Balkanistica and co-editor of Romance Monographs. In 1992, he received the Liberal Arts Outstanding Professor of the Year in recognition of his teaching. In 2004, he received the Mississippi Humanities Council’s Humanities Teacher of the Year at the University of Mississippi; in 2011, he received the UM Nolan E. Shepard International Service Award; and in 2017, he received the UM Thomas F. Frist, Sr. Student Service Award. In 2018, he was named one of UM’s inaugural Distinguished Professors.
Biography
Dr. Donald L. Dyer is Associate Dean for Faculty and Academic Affairs in the College of Liberal Arts and Distinguished Professor of Modern Languages in the Department of Modern Languages at the University of Mississippi, where he has been teaching since the late 1980s. In his capacity as associate dean he oversees matters involving faculty and department chairs in the College of Liberal Arts to include promotion and tenuring, research, graduate education, committee assignments and governance, teaching and research awards, international students and faculty, interdisciplinary minors and programs, and assessment. His campus service activities also include membership on the University’s Strategic Planning Council and the Committee on Internationalization as well as in its chapters of Phi Beta Kappa and Phi Kappa Phi.
Dr. Dyer was Chair of the Department of Modern Languages from 2005 to 2016. He obtained his B.A. in Russian (with Honors) from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1980 and his M.A. (1982) and Ph.D. (1990) in Slavic Linguistics from the University of Chicago. He has taught courses in Russian, linguistics, and honors.
Selected Books
Од Чикаго и назад: Papers to Honor Victor A. Friedman on the Occasion of His Retirement [co-editor with Brian D. Joseph and Christina E. Kramer] (2015)
The Bill Question: Contributions to the Study of Linguistics and Languages in Honor of Bill J. Darden on the Occasion of His Sixty-Sixth Birthday [co-editor with Howard I. Aronson, Victor A. Friedman, Daniela S. Hristova and Jerrold M. Sadock] (2006)
Of All the Slavs My Favorites: Studies in South Slavic and Balkan Linguistics in Honor of Howard I. Aronson on the Occasion of His 66th Birthday [co-editor with Victor A. Friedman] (2002)
The Romanian Dialect of Moldova: A Study in Language and Politics (1999)
Word Order in the Simple Bulgarian Sentence: A Study in Grammar, Semantics and Pragmatics (1992)
Courses Taught
- Lin 600 Fundamentals of Applied Linguistics
- Ling 540 Special Topics in Linguistics
- Mlll 541 Special Topics in Linguistics
- Lin 721 Capstone
- Lin 299 Topics in Linguistics
- Ling 350 Structure of a Less Commonly Taught Languages
- Span 601 Professional Issues in Graduate Study
- TESL 600 Fundamentals of Linguistics for TESL
- Ling/Engl 313 Intro to Linguistic Science
- Engl 315 Morphology
- Hon 101 Freshman Honors I
- Hon 102 Freshman Honors II
Education
B.A. Russian, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill (1980)
M.A. Slavic Languages, University of Chicago (1982)
Ph.D. Slavic Languages, University of Chicago (1990)
Recognitions
- Distinguished Professor, University of Mississippi, 2018
- Thomas F. Frist, Sr. Student Service Award, University of Mississippi, 2017
- 17th Kenneth E. Naylor Memorial Lecturer in South Slavic and Balkan Linguistics, Department of Slavic and Eastern European Languages and Cultures at Ohio State University, 2014
- Nolan E. Shepard International Service Award, University of Mississippi, 2011
- Humanities Teacher of the Year, Mississippi Humanities Council, 2004
- Outstanding Professor of the Year, College of Liberal Arts, UM, 1992