The leaves are slowing starting to fall around my college campus, a sign that the summer is truly over. Summers seem to be the optimal time for students to apply what they have learned in our classrooms by doing independent research, a continuation of language study begun in your institutions, or, as in the case of one of my students, working on a small family farm in Hokkaido through the organic farming WWOOF program. Perhaps you have students who have had out-of-the-ordinary experiences over the summer in which they combine Japanese language with other activities. No doubt many of you were also involved in organizing student study trips to Japan, as well as networking with colleagues around the world at conferences throughout Japan and other parts of Asia.

This summer I experienced the gamut of what it means to be a faculty member with many different hats, as I teach within my Japanese program but also try to develop student interest in integrating language with a chosen field, not to speak of collegial interest. Before devoting my time to my own research in literature, I led a group of students on a three-week whirlwind study tour of cultural artifacts, historical museums, and pilgrimage sites (including a hike halfway up Mt. Fuji). Following this, I mentored two students on a Freeman Student–Faculty Fellows Grant-funded sports science research project with nationally-ranked Japanese women's college soccer teams and then thoroughly enjoyed playing advisor to a group of eight non-Japan specialist faculty members from my institution on a tour that followed our semester-long group reading of The Tale of Genji and The Confessions of Lady Nijo. There are many dimensions to keep us busy running a language, literature, and culture program, and in the end students and faculty alike benefit greatly.

I wrote in the last newsletter that in order to keep the field of Japanese alive and accessible to ever-widening groups of students (not just those on the academic track), we need to keep looking for innovative and diversified ways to teach language, culture, and literature. Often this takes the form of leading study groups to Japan or having students connect through email or other internet formats with their peers in Japan. Through sharing our scholarship and successful classroom practices we actively promote the innovation and integration of our wider field that encompasses Japanese language, literature, linguistics, and pedagogy.

In order to explore further opportunities to learn from each other through sharing our scholarship and successful classroom practices, I encourage you to participate in one or all of the following opportunities. This fall we are looking forward to the publication of a special issue of our journal Japanese Language and Literature on Study Abroad. I am pleased to write that for the fall of 2008 we are now announcing a call for papers for a special issue on Pedagogy, to be guest edited by Prof. Seiichi Makino and Prof. Mutsuko Endo Hudson. As clearly evidenced by the June 2006 International Conference on Japanese Language Education and the March 2007 ATJ Seminar, many of you are already actively involved in innovative ways of teaching language skills. This Fall 2008 special issue welcomes both research-based manuscripts as well as those that focus on application of a wide variety of skills. I hope that you will use this opportunity to reflect upon your teaching and share your ideas with your ATJ colleagues.

In looking ahead to the year to come, two more opportunities present themselves as avenues for sharing research and classroom practices. I encourage you to submit a proposal for the ATJ day-long seminar to be held on Thursday, April 3, 2008 preceding the Association for Asian Studies conference in Atlanta, Georgia. Later in the academic year, from July 11–13, 2008, the next International Conference on Japanese Language Education will be held at Pusan University of Foreign Studies in Pusan, Korea. Under the theme of "Building Toward Broader Networking for Japanese Language Education and Japanese Studies," this conference promises to provide another venue for strengthening ties throughout the broader discipline of Japanese studies throughout the world.

Perhaps you are like me: consciously on the lookout for ways to bring incoming college students into my Japanese program. I have not yet met any new college students who took the newly inaugurated AP Japanese exam this past May 2007, but no doubt some of you have welcomed them into your classes and into your programs. This is a historic moment, as Japanese is now one of the many language options of high school students. I look forward to seeing how this new test will strengthen articulation between the high school and the post secondary levels of Japanese. I hope that we can gather first-hand information from all of you regarding the numbers of students who enter college or university having taken the AP Japanese exam and whether this tool has been useful for placement into higher-level language courses. Also of interest is whether these students continue to take Japanese beyond basic language requirements.

Many of your institutions may offer honors for a range of subjects, but up until now there has not been an honor society at the post-secondary level for Japanese. Drawing upon the success such honor societies have seen in high schools, after having conducted a survey of post-secondary Japanese language instructors, we have decided to implement and offer a national Japanese Honor Society for college and university. I look forward to promoting the study of Japanese on our campuses through this honor society.

I would like to commend my colleague Wes Jacobsen for spearheading fundraising efforts to benefit ATJ, especially in these times when we can no longer rely on outside grant funding to cover all of ATJ's expenses. Please consider becoming a Lifetime member as well as donating to the endowment established to guarantee the continued success of the Association of Teachers of Japanese in our common efforts to build an ever-stronger membership base that is even more involved in Japanese education.

In closing, I would like to acknowledge one of our past presidents who was extremely active in the field of Japanese for several decades. Over the summer our community experienced the great loss of Prof. Hiroshi Miyaji, who was president of ATJ from 1990 to 1996. Many of you who knew him in different capacities will want to be sure to attend the "designated ATJ panel" at the main AAS conference in Atlanta. We have decided to dedicate this panel in honor of Miyaji-sensei. Past students and colleagues will use this opportunity to talk about "A New Era in Japanese Studies: The 1980s–1990s and Beyond. A Round Table Discussion in Honor of Hiroshi Miyaji (1925–2007)." I hope that you will be able to attend and learn more about his significant contributions to the field of Japanese language around the world. We gain inspiration from excellent teachers and scholars such as Miyaji-sensei.