Despite two early snowfalls, autumn is lingering in the foothills of the Rockies. Leaves are beginning to turn, and it appears we'll have more fall color than most years. Cool, sunny days continue. I'm taking the invigorating weather as an omen that the fates will continue to look kindly on our work in the Japanese field.

Various ATJ committees and subsets of our membership are working hard on such activities as planning the spring 2001 ATJ seminar, gathering nominations for the Board, producing the second issue of the new online professional development newsletter, keeping the JATJ on track, administering the Bridging Fellowships for undergraduate study abroad in Japan, staffing the editorial board that is selecting and entering materials for the JapanNet segment of Langnet - the online database of resources for teaching and learning Japanese being developed in collaboration with the National Foreign Language Center - and planning and carrying out the various phases of an assessment of advanced Japanese instruction that has been funded by the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission. The goal of this project is to determine "the extent to which, and means by which, the US is producing citizens with advanced level Japanese skills." The first phase of this assessment project will take a "snapshot" of the levels of ability achieved by American students completing their formal Japanese instruction and will survey their backgrounds to identify factors in their success as well as identify their career goals. Phase two will consist of assessments of different models of study abroad programs, seeking to identify the programmatic factors that lead to the acquisition of Japanese. Phase three, not yet funded, will take a similar look at those factors in U.S. programs associated with acquisition of Japanese.

In addition, ATJ continues to collaborate on Alliance projects, such as administering a new grant program to support K-12 teachers' participation in workshops and other professional development opportunities (funded by the Japan Foundation), planning for the upcoming February 2-3 conference on credentials programs for Japanese language teachers in the U.S. (funded by the Japan Foundation and the Northeast Asia Area Council of the Association for Asian Studies), planning for the fellowships for K-12 teachers that will support language and pedagogy study at Middlebury College next summer (funded by the U.S.-Japan Foundation), assuming publication of the JLTN Quarterly, formerly produced by the Japanese Language Teachers Network, etc. See the articles elsewhere in this issue for details of these many projects and opportunities.

In the category of plans for the future, an upcoming brainstorming meeting will focus on the feasibility of the Alliance taking on development and implementation of a national assessment instrument for Japanese that might ease articulation woes, among other goals. Also, we are seeking Fulbright funds to support an opportunity for Japanese instructors of all levels to spend time in Japan developing skills in using technology in the design of instructional materials and delivery of instruction. As always, if you have suggestions or information relevant to any of these projects - or if you would like to volunteer to participate in any of them - please feel free to call or write the ATJ office.

I have two recent pleasant developments to report: Jill Cheng of Cheng and Tsui, Inc., has offered to fund new professional development grants for Japanese teachers. These funds will be available on a competitive basis through ATJ to teachers of Japanese who need support to attend workshops or engage in other professional development opportunities. A formal announcement will be distributed soon. And Tim Vance, Editor of the Journal, has recently received an invitation from the Modern Languages Association to add the Journal of the Association of Teachers of Japanese to the JSTOR online journals project. This would make the journal available in electronic as well as print format.

I hope to see many of you at ACTFL in Boston, where the Cheng and Tsui professional development grants will be formally announced and where there will be two panels discussing ATJ activities: one on "Professional Development in Japan: Fellowships and Opportunities" Friday afternoon and the other on the JapanNet database project on Sunday afternoon. See you there.

Laurel Rasplica Rodd, President