As always, it was a delight to see so many ATJ members at the annual ATJ Seminar in San Diego, at the ATJ-sponsored AAS roundtable "Between/Beyond Cultures: The Teaching and Learning of Heritage Languages in North America," and at the business meeting. I would like to express my appreciation to the hard-working ATJ Board members and committee members who make all this possible, as well as to give a special word of thanks to Hiroshi Miyaji and Eleanor Jorden, "former presidents extraordinaire," for their presentations at the Presidents' panel that concluded the Seminar with a look both back and to the future. Thanks to the Seminar Committee (Ericson, Kataoka, Makino, Rabinovitch, and Tsuda) we were treated to a wide range of papers on the topics of Japanese linguistics, pedagogy, classical and modern literature, and second language acquisition. Former president James O'Brien sent reminiscences about ATJ under his direction in the mid-eighties, and Professors Jorden and Miyaji, who preceded and succeeded Professor O'Brien, both reminisced and spoke of the challenges the field continues to face: the need for good pedagogy and well-trained teachers, dealing with growth and changes in the field, facilitating "dialogue among divergent groups identified distinctly by academic disciplines, professional interests, and ethnicity," and developing "as an organization representative of academic leadership and integrity, always supportive of meaningful research and always open to new ideas that are relevant to Japanese. ..." I was very sorry that Roy Andrew Miller and Akira Komai were finally unable to join us in San Diego. I would like to take this opportunity express my admiration for the work of all these leaders, as well as to celebrate the contributions of two former Presidents who are no longer with us: Robert Brower and Ivan Morris. It is an honor to try to contribute in even the smallest way to the work these eminent Japanologists (and the other officers and board members who served with them) have done for the field during the almost-forty-year history of ATJ!

I also want to thank the nominating committee for fielding a superb slate of candidates and to congratulate and welcome our new Board members, Carl Falsgraf, Ryoko Kubota, Naomi McGloin, Kazuko Nakajima, and Patricia Thornton.

I am pleased to announce that ATJ has received funding from the Northeast Area Council of AAS in support of a conference on teacher credentialing which is to take place in Santa Monica at the Japan Foundation Language Center the last weekend of October. I hope that those of you involved in K-12 teacher training and credentialing will put those dates on your calenders and plan to attend to discuss this important national topic.

In addition,the very active Professional Development Committee is also planning a new online newsletter focusing on pedagogy, and ATJ is looking into the logistics of making professional development modules available online. This latter project involves continuing the work on the "Institute for Teaching Japanese" begun by The Laurasian Institution and funded by the Ford Foundation.

The National Board of Professional Teacher Standards has recently issued a draft of national standards for professional foreign language teachers. A copy may be obtained by calling 1-800-22TEACH (or 1-800-228-3224). I urge you to get a copy, review it, and provide your feedback to the Board. It is important that we teachers in the "less-commonly-taughts" ensure that our views and needs are adequately addressed in such national efforts. Thanks to Leslie Birkland for representing Japanese teachers on the Board.

Finally, a request: Your ATJ officers and Board are always eager to hear your opinions, needs, requests. We can't always address them immediately, but be assured that we do keep them in mind and try to move toward appropriate actions. One matter that we will have to decide soon is a topic for our "designated" panel at AAS. As much as possible, this should be a topic of interest to the full membership of ATJ, crossing disciplinary boundaries. If you have suggestions for such a panel, please let us know. Also, AAS has told us that we may "endorse" other AAS panels. (This does not ensure the panel's acceptance by AAS.) If you are proposing a panel to AAS that would be of particular interest to the ATJ membership, please let us know and we'll be happy to give it our endorsement. We are also happy to publicize (or endorse!) relevant panels and presentations at other conferences. Please be sure to keep us informed, so we can spread the word.

Laurel Rasplica Rodd, President