It's always a pleasure to get together with the ATJ Board and talk with colleagues from around the country about their activities and issues. This year again that pleasure was compounded, as we met jointly on September 25 with the Board of the National Council of Japanese Language Teachers (formerly NCSTJ) to review goals for the entire field and strategic plans begun last year. I think we all recognize that such discussions are the basis of any meaningful articulation efforts.

As Elizabeth Welles wrote in a recent issue of the ADFL Bulletin: "The advantages of a coherent curriculum are self-evident. Students move from one level to the next with minimum stress. For those who drop out temporarily, the points of reentry are well defined. High school and college teachers agree and understand what grades and tests mean. All the right hands know what the left hands are doing, and every stakeholder benefits. Students are encouraged by the well-planned curriculum and by their accomplishments marked at various stages to go on to higher levels of language mastery."

Clearly this is an ideal to strive for, not a description of the current situation, but I have hopes we're making progress, not least in addressing a problem Elizabeth describes as undermining efforts to achieve coherent curricula: "A gap exists between the cultures of secondary and postsecondary education, and it is alive with stereotypes of what one side thinks about the other or what one side thinks the other thinks about it."

I have always appreciated the fact that ATJ takes as its mission to bring together everyone who has an interest in teaching the interrelated areas of Japanese language, literature, and culture, whatever their academic field of expertise or level of instruction. I think our organization is ideally situated to encourage the discussions that are needed to undermine the stereotypes and help us move the entire field forward, and I am encouraged that we seem to be making great strides in this.

Many of the activities of ATJ and of the Alliance are described in more detail in this newsletter. I want to alert you to one new one: the National Council of Organizations of Less Commonly Taught Languages (NCOLTCL), of which ATJ is an organizational member, is organizing a conference on less-commonly-taughts in conjunction with the Georgetown University Language Roundtable, May 6, 2000. This is an opportunity to discuss concerns we share with other language teachers and also to attend the language-acquisition-focused sessions of GURT.

Moving from the good news to the bad: please note that the ATJ Board has voted to raise dues in all categories, as the current dues structure no longer supports the basic functions of ATJ: newsletter, journal, seminar, etc. Postage alone has increased dramatically in the decade since the last dues increase. Details of the new dues structure can be found here. The renewal notice you will receive later this year will outline in greater detail the many activities of the Association and new initiatives that are planned for the coming months and years. We hope that ATJ has become an important item on your list of professional activities and trust that you will show your support for the organization by renewing your membership promptly. Yoroshiku onegai shimasu!

Laurel Rasplica Rodd, President