While many faculty members enjoyed turkey Thursday, Dennis Preston feasted on Polish pig feet.
Preston, an MSU professor of linguistics, traveled to Warsaw, Poland to receive the Officers' Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland on Friday.
It is the second-highest award given to non-Polish citizens for public service. The award was to be given by Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski, but he was called away due to a crisis in Ukraine.
"I travel in academic circles, not government, so I have never been invited to the palace before," Preston said before his trip. "It is very exciting to go to the palace and receive a nice medal. I'm sure I'll show it off when I get back."
Preston's service to Poland began about 30 years ago when he was the first to teach sociolinguistics to Polish students in 1972. Sociolinguistics studies the effects of factors such as age, gender and class on language.
Preston then set up an exchange program between Polish and American graduate students and faculty that has been in effect for 20 years.
"I kept doing it because there seemed to me to be a need on both sides," Preston said. "I think there is nothing better for an American to do than to leave their country. It also gave students at a small college the opportunity to study with a much larger group of very distinguished Polish language professors."
The program also helped Polish students gain better access to libraries and helped to improve their English, Preston said.
"I made people sign on for a year, because I think you might as well send them with a tourist agency if it is only for a month," Preston said. "I sent students who left with one name and came back with another. They had Polish names, and came back demanding the correct pronunciation."
Bartlomiej Plichta, an MSU doctoral student in linguistics from Poland, said he came to MSU because of Preston. Plitchta said he met Preston when he was a visiting professor at Eastern Michigan University and learned about MSU's sociolinguistics program.
"I trusted him and I thought it would be a good idea," he said.
Plichta said Preston was instrumental in building the sociolinguistics program at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Poland.
"He came several times to Poland, not only teaching, but also building the linguistic program during a time when it was not easy to build an academic program from scratch," Plichta said. "The sociolinguistics program is now the most prestigious program in the whole country."
David Prestel, chairman of the Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian and African Languages, said the award is a wonderful reflection of the department.
"It is a just recognition of the years of work he's done in Poland," Prestel said. "He brings energy and enthusiasm to the department. In 2003, he directed the Linguistics Society of America Summer Institute.
"This is another feather in his cap, and he has a number of them."
