March 22, 2001, Chicago, Illinois. Attending: Vance, Ericson, Hatasa, McGloin, Noda, Marcus, Tsuda, Nakajima, Makino, Watabe, Ajisaka, Sherif, Kubota, Kataoka, Schmidt, Rodd, Miller, Snyder. The minutes of the Fall Board Meeting were approved unanimously.

• President's Report
• Secretary's Report
• Treasurer's Report
• Newletter Editor's Report
• Journal Editor's Report
• Website Report
• Bridging Project Report
• Alliance Report
• Seminar Committee Report
• Nominating Committee Report
• SIG Report
• Old Business
• New Business

President's Report

1) Some SIGs are now functioning: Chris Thompson will organize the teaching materials SIG; Yashy Tohsaku will organize the professional development SIG; Stephen Miller is organizing the classcial literature group; a SIG on literature pedagogy is being organized; additional special interest groups are encouraged. 2) Upcoming committee assignments: the 2002 cohort of Board members will serve as Nominating Committee (committee urged by out-going chair to start process early); the 2003 cohort becomes the Program Committee for the Thursday Seminar. The President thanked the outgoing cohort for their service. 3) The President also expressed congratulations to Seiichi Makino on his award for outstanding contribution to the language teaching profession from the ADFL (division of the MLA). The award is to be presented at the MLA conference in New Orleans in December. 4) A questionnaire on teacher training is being circulated by the New Visions project; members of Japanese field are encour- aged to complete it. 5) Current projects: LangNet continues, but the Japanese editorial board has not been making many additions due to problems with the software. These problems have supposedly been solved and input should continue on reading and writing materials. Professional development materials may also be entered soon. 6) The Advanced Assessment Project in co- operation with National Foreign Language Center to evaluate advanced students has been on hold because permission has not been obtained to use Defense Department tests. Evaluation teams from the executive board of the project will be observing study abroad programs in Japan. This committee includes Tohsaku, Noda, Makino, and Wetzel. 7) Haruo Shirane is attempting to expand participation in MLA by the Japanese field. A recommendation has been made to divide the current East Asian division into pre-1900 and post-1900 divisions, doubling number of panels at MLA. A proposal to create 3 new MLA discussion groups was put on hold. Members of the field will be polled about these changes.

Secretary's Report

ATJ Membership Breakdown

Members are encouraged to continue the membership drive.

Treasurer's Report

Kathy Ajisaka of the ATJ office is now handling the bookkeeping.

Newsletter Editor's Report

The new membership directory will be mailed with the next issue.

Journal Editors' Report

1) Editorial and printing processes are being moved to Tucson for the next issue. Volume 35:1 will appear in May. Dissertation abstracts will be included as a regular feature. The journal's new title, Japanese Language and Literature, will appear with this issue.

Website Report

Work continues on developing a password-protected portion of the website; the interactive portion of site being developed will be removed to a separate portion of site. In order to use pass- word-protected elements, members must be sent passwords, an administrative task that would require extra staff time. A decision needs to be made as to whether this should be done. There was discussion of creating email lists to contact members.

Bridging Project Report

Scholarships for study abroad, funded by a U.S.-Japan Friendship Commission fundraising effort, are entering a fifth cycle with another large applicant pool. Members are encouraged to urge students to apply.

Alliance Report

1) AATJ will be sponsoring a new round of non-native K-12 teacher training at Middlebury this summer. 2) Funding has been awarded by DOE for a multi-media institute to be conducted in Japan (scheduled for summer 2002).

Seminar Committee Report

The chair expressed thanks to those who served on the committee. A suggestion was made that electronic submissions be encouraged in the future.

Nominating Committee Report

The chair expressed thanks to the committee members. A recommendation was made that the initial list of candidates generated by the committee and the membership be limited to ap- proximately fifteen to be solicited for nominating materials. The new committee was urged to start immediately on the nominating process for next year.

SIG Report

1) The Classical Japanese SIG will meet at AAS to begin discussion of teaching classical Japanese language and literature. A proposal was made to create a border-crossing panel at MLA to discuss problems in teaching classical languages. 2) The Heritage-Language SIG met at AAS to discuss research ideas and funding proposals. More than 50 expressed interest in the Heritage- Language SIG on the response form.

Old Business

Costs for audio-visual equipment for the Thursday Seminar in Chicago totalled almost $6000. Costs are going up on these items, and the ATJ board is asked to consider how to cover these costs. This issue will be discussed at the September board meeting.

New Business

Date of fall meeting: September 29, 2001. Location under discussion but a preference was expressed for Colorado.