Attending: Ericson, Falsgraf, Hatasa, Kubota, Makino, Marcus, McGloin, Miller, Nakajima, Noda, Rodd, Schmidt, Sherif, Snyder, Thornton, Tsuda, Watabe, Takahara, Vance. Absent: Kataoka, Rabinovitch..

• President's Report
• Secretary's Report
• Treasurer's Report
• Newletter Editor's Report
• Journal Editor's Report
• Committee Reports
• Bridging Project Report
• Old Business
• New Business

President's Report
1) ATJ continues as a member of National Council of Organizations of Less Commonly Taught Languages. 2) ATJ retains membership in JNCL/NCLIS, but membership will be changed to Alliance; Rodd attended lobbying day in May. The JNCL/NCLIS website is useful source of information on field at languagepolicy.org. 3) LangNet Project to develop an on-line database of teaching materials continues with Thornton and Makino serving on board. There will be a presentation at ACTFL on LangNet. Current focus is on reading skills. 4) The Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission is funding an advanced learning assessment project, beginning with assessment of advanced learners (pre-professionals; advanced graduate students) to determine baseline for national professional capacity during the fall. A second part of the study examines study-abroad programs in Japan to assess success of language teaching. Part Three (pending funding) will examine programs in US in terms of factors leading to student skill acquisition. 5) AATJ is sponsoring a US-Japan Foundation-funded program of summer language fellowships; focus will include language component for summer language study plus new advocacy and pedagogy component for non-native teachers of Japanese; program will be based at Middlebury due to advantage of immersion environment. 6) AATJ will sponsor a conference on teacher credentialing at LA Japan Foundation (Feb 2-3, 2001); conference will target institutions with credentialing programs to discuss issues of training and certification of Japanese language teachers. 7) Japanese Language Teachers Network Quarterly (Illinois) has approached AATJ about taking over this publication, which features "shareware" teaching materials for K-12 classroom use; Alliance will publish one year's issues at no cost to subscribers and offer the publication to ATJ/NCJLT members. AATJ is looking for contributing and coordinating editors to assume journal. 8) National Institute for Multimedia Education collaborative project (funding pending) on technology in teaching, targeting teachers at all levels.

Secretary's Report
ATJ Membership Breakdown

Treasurer's Report
January 1 - September 15, 2000

Newsletter Editor's Report
New board members are reminded of responsibility to send regional news to Newsletter; proposal to survey members concerning most useful sections of Newsletter.

Journal Editors' Report
1) Pagination and typography changes have been introduced; page numbers now reflect which number of volume. 2) Literature manuscript submissions are still low; need for strategies to increase literature submissions; concern with title of Journal as impediment to literature publications; suggestion to consider changing name of to Japanese Language and Literature; suggestion to create special issues of Journal on literature to increase literature visibility and to contact AJLS to promote literature submissions. 3) Discussion of need for Journal editors to attend fall board meeting. 4) Motion: Journal title will be changed to: Japanese Language and Literature: The Journal of the Association of Teachers of Japanese; seconded; discussion; approved by unanimous voice vote.

Report on Alliance of Associations of Teachers of Japanese (AATJ)
1) Alliance of Associations of Teachers of Japanese (AATJ) issues to be discussed at joint ATJ/NCJLT board meeting 9/24. 2) Some former ATJ projects have been shifted to AATJ-sponsored grant proposals. 3) Current/founding AATJ members are ATJ and NCJLT, though other members may join; AATJ is wholly grant-funded organization of organizations; Susan Schmidt is AATJ Director; Kathleen Ajisaka serves as Alliance staff. 4) AATJ Board consists of 3 members from each member organization, president plus 2; ATJ members currently are Rodd, Ericson, Kataoka.

Committee Reports
• Nominating Committee (Ericson. chair): Committee seeks nominations from board and general membership; nominators are urged to consider candidates with diverse backgrounds and fields of specialization; deadline for nominations will be Dec. 11, 2000.
• Seminar Committee (Noda, chair): Committee has discussed possibility of charging for attendance at Thursday Seminar; proposal to charge non-members $30 for Seminar attendance; consideration of strategies for enforcing fee for Seminar attendance; proposal to admit NCJLT members to Seminar as benefit of their membership; motion to introduce $30 fee for non ATJ/NCJLT members to attend Seminar; passed unanimously by voice vote; call for volunteers to read proposals for Seminar.
• Professional Development Committee (Tohsaku, chair): Committee is editing Professional Development News as an emailed publication; first issue printed as insert to Newsletter but in future distribution only by listserv; articles are being solicited; current projects focus on credentialing and summer professional development workshops.

Bridging Project Report
Project to encourage undergraduate study abroad continues; scholarship program in fourth cycle offering 30 scholarships in fall for year or semester, 15 in spring; applicant-to-recipient ratio is approx. 10/1 for fall, 6/1 for spring; next deadline for scholarship application is 10/4/2000.

Old Business
Financial Review - Currently a 3-year cycle for a mini-audit; accountant would like to do review annually in conjunction with taxes; proposal to annualize financial review approved.
Special Interest Groups - Three SIGs (Classical language, Heritage language, Assessment) have been formed; contact persons for other groups (Professional development, Study abroad, Distance education, etc.) are being sought; SIGs would follow ACTFL or other models, providing clearinghouse (newsletter, listserv) for issues relating to interest, organize panels to represent SIG at national meetings, etc.
Membership/Endowment campaign - ATJ continues to seek funds for its endowment or foundations/corporations that might match endowment funds; membership campaign continues with dissemination of membership brochures; continued discussion of ways to enhance benefits (limiting website access, etc.) to encourage membership; suggestion that membership campaign be conducted through other national and local groups such as AJLS, and local ATJ groups; suggestion to target student memberships by encouraging undergraduate and graduate student participation, perhaps by offering forums in which to discuss career opportunities; suggestion to solicit endowment gifts or matching gifts from publishers in field.

New Business
Web domain address - Website would like to add interactive features; password protection will be added for parts of site, and members will be sent username for sections of site; University of Colorado server is not able to support certain interactive features (bulletin boards, etc.); proposal to investigate creating a new, free-standing site, under the domain name Japaneseteaching.org, that will allow implementation of interactive features; proposal to investigate retaining a professional webmaster to maintain site and introduce updated features; discussion of which areas of site might be password protected (job information; membership directory; textbook discussion group).
Acceptance of credit card payments - Bank can take direct deposits from credit cards for approx. 5% fee; unanimous approval of proposal to take credit card payments for dues.
Membership categories - Following increase in dues, ATJ has received inquiries about possibility of introducing reduced dues category for senior citizen members; suggestion to create new dues category for retired faculty members at same level as student membership (North America $20.00/overseas $35.00).
AAS 2001/2002 - ATJ currently has one guaranteed panel at AAS which has been used for border-crossing panels for past two years; suggestions for future panels are sought.
Institutional continuity for standing committees - A suggestion was made that nominating and seminar committees create a mechanism to improve continuity between committee cohorts; e.g., including a member from previous committee on following year's committee.
Future board meetings - ATJ by-laws mandate annual meeting of board at AAS; midyear board meeting is enabled by outside funding; proposal for a future discussion of meetings and size of board; proposal to appoint ad hoc goals committee to review ATJ activities; discussion of structure of such a committee; committee to be appointed by President with one member of each board cohort, charged with review of current strategic plan; request to include issues for discussion in future board agendas.