The SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE ON LINGUISTICS (SECOL), the oldest regional linguistic association in the U.S., was organized in 1969 by Professors James Gough of Georgia Institute of Technology, María Tsiapera of UNC-Chapel Hill, and Anthony L. Vanek of Florida State University. In addition Robert Scholes (U of Florida), Ronald Butters (Duke U), and John Algeo (U of Florida) signed the petition for the incorporation of the organization in Florida.
SECOL has a well-deserved reputation for support of research on a broad range of topics by established scholars and their graduate-students. In March 1969, one hundred fifty people from 19 institutions gathered to hear thirty three papers at the Florida State University at our first annual meeting. The April 2009 membership stands at 140 representing 70 colleges and universities. The University of Mississippi currently boasts the largest number of SECOL members followed by the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.
Continuing to provide professional opportunities and personal contact and for its members, SECOL publishers a newsletter, a scholarly journal, the Journal of Southern Linguistics, and the abstracts and program of its annual conference which occurs each spring. SECOL also co-hosts pivotal symposia. For many years SECOL met in the fall with with the South Atlantic Modern Language Association. The first New Ways of Analyzing Variation (NWAV) conference was launched in conjunction with a SECOL meeting. Language Variation in the South (LAVIS) II, III, and IV were also held in conjunction with SECOL meetings in 1993 at Auburn University, in 2004 at the University of Alabama, and in 2015 at North Carolina State University. In 2005, SECOL began hosting the annual regional session of the South Atlantic American Dialect Society.
Please click on the link for Constitution of SECOL