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As of January 2022, I am an Assessment Specialist at University of Michigan's Center for Research on Learning and Teaching (CRLT). I earned my PhD in Linguistics from the University of Michigan in 2018 specializing in production and perception of dialects with a particular focus on language attitudes and media. I joined CRLT in 2019 after a year working as a lecturer in the Linguistics department and assisting with several research projects at the University of Michigan. I use my classroom experience and skills as a sociolinguist to inform my work in assessment. In my current role, I work with faculty and staff to assess a wide range of questions at the program and course level. I consult with individuals and answer larger questions through surveys, focus groups, and interviews. I have built and analyzed assessments of unit and university programming using quantitative and qualitative methods and has facilitated workshops on equitable assessment practices.

My work leverages my skills in quantitative and qualitative data analysis, research methodologies, and sociolinguistics to assess programs and instructional strategies in higher education. My doctoral research examined how American Southern dialects are portrayed in fictional programs and what effect these portrayals have on viewers. My dissertation, "Media Influence on Implicit and Explicit Attitudes," combined methodologies from sociolinguistics, social psychology, and communications studies to answer questions about the role of media in language attitude maintenance and change. My research aimed to address sociocognitive theories and questions of dialect authenticity while broadly connecting to linguistic stereotyping.

Performing language attitudes research gave me particular insight into how language and language attitudes may manifest in a higher education setting and the effect that can have in the classroom and on campuses at large. A consistent research and teaching goal is to make links to society and involve some form of outreach. To that end, I also co-founded an initiative at University of Michigan to raise awareness of linguistic prejudice and discrimination in higher education (see About Me page for more on that!).

Contact:

heheaton@umich.edu