Departmental Visiting Scholar Policy
The Department of Asian Languages & Literature welcomes visiting scholars who wish to study and
pursue research appropriate to our department’s teaching and research scope. For practical reasons we
can only accommodate a limited number of visitors at a given time and therefore must ask prospective
visiting scholars to inquire well in advance of the time of their anticipated visit regarding their plans.
The following statement of department policy is intended to give prospective visitors an indication of
what the department is able to provide to visitors and what our expectations and application
requirements are.
Please note at the
outset these two points:
•The policy laid out here pertains only to individuals who will submit unsolicited requests to come to
our department as visiting scholars. It does not apply when the proposed visiting scholar is to be
invited at the behest of an AL&L faculty member.
•University of Washington policy requires that all visiting scholars have regular professorial faculty appointments in established academic departments at their home institutions of higher learning to which they will return when their University of Washington visit ends. Requirements pertaining to financial and insurance matters can be found at these two UW websites: (i) http://iso.uw.edu/jfunding.html and (ii) http://iso.uw.edu/jinsurance.html.
1. All requests for visiting scholar status must come first to the chairman of the department. Requests
received by other AL&L faculty should be forwarded to the chairman. Only the chairman has the
authority to issue visiting scholar invitations. Requests must include (a) a letter from the prospective
visitor giving a brief sketch of the visitor’s teaching and research background, explaining what the
visitor proposes to work on while here and why this department is a desirable or appropriate place to
carry out that work; (b) a c.v. and bibliography and (c) specific dates (year[s] and months) of the
proposed visit. These documents must be received either in “hard copies” or electronically as pdf
attachments. (In view of the great uncertainty of successful forwarding, opening, reading and printing
of attachments in Asian languages using other software, we must ask for pdf’s.)
2. The chairman will circulate requests to appropriate faculty members for review and
recommendation. In assessing the suitability of requests faculty will take into consideration the
appropriateness and compatibility of the prospective visitor’s research to that of our department
overall. Faculty will also consider how the prospective visitor might interact with the department,
through such things as colloquia, brown bag lunch talks, informal work with faculty and students, etc.
Under normal circumstances visiting scholars will be expected to have some tangible, visible
interaction with the department, though the extent of such interaction may vary according to individual
circumstances.
3. At least one faculty member must be interested enough
in having the visitor here to be
willing to spend a little time and effort in hosting the
visitor. This need not go beyond such
things as a welcoming meeting, answering questions, introducing
the visitor to the library, etc.
4. When one or more faculty members have expressed interest
in having a visitor
invited, including a willingness to assume the “hosting” responsibility
described in number 3
above, and when there is no expressed opinion to the contrary,
the chairman will send a formal
letter of invitation.
5. No explicit limit will be set on the number of visiting
scholars that the department can
host at a given time, though the chairman reserves the
right to refrain from issuing new
invitations when there is a sense that we already have
reached a maximum number of visitors
who can be properly accommodated at one time.
6. Visiting scholars can expect that their affiliation with our department will entitle them to library
access privileges, and that they will be welcome at all departmental activities, colloquia, lectures, &c.,
and to visit appropriate classes at the discretion of the individual instructors. Prospective visitors
should note that the department, unfortunately, does not have any means to provide any kind of
financial support, telephone or computer facilities, mail box or office space to visitors. Visitors will be
required to cover their own expenses in all respects, including visa costs when applicable.
Last updated September 2011
