In attendance: Officers Wesley Jacobsen (Past President), Joan Ericson (President), and Mari Noda (President-Elect); Board members Dan Dewey, Kazumi Hatasa, Janet Ikeda, Noriko Iwasaki, Yoshiko Mori, Mayumi Oka, Masumi Reade, J. Paul Warnick, and Eve Zimmerman; Journal editors Tim Vance, Kim Jones, and Janice Brown; ATJ staff members Kathleen Ajisaka and Susan Schmidt.
Call to Order and Officers' Reports: The meeting was called to order by President Joan Ericson, who thanked the Board members for traveling to the meeting and mentioned the impact she had noticed of the new AP Japanese Language and Culture program on the incoming students at her college. She feels that the field will continue to see an impact as students who have achieved more advanced levels of language study in high school move into college classrooms.
Ericson also mentioned the upcoming special issue of the ATJ journal on pedagogy, with Mutsuko Endo Hudson and Seiichi Makino as co-editors. The call for papers is online and has been widely publicized; a large number of submissions is expected.
The 2008 ATJ-sponsored panel at the Association for Asian Studies conference will be a roundtable in memory of Hiroshi Miyaji, ATJ's former president, who died in May 2007. It is hoped that many colleagues outside the Japanese language field who knew Miyaji-sensei will attend.
Ericson mentioned the 2008 ICJLE, which will be held in Pusan, South Korea, as an opportunity for making contacts with colleagues from around the world, and said she hoped to encourage many ATJ members to attend the conference.
Past President Wesley Jacobsen mentioned that enrollments in Japanese seem to be up at many U.S. institutions and noted that the effect of recent increased interest in Chinese has not - as had been feared - been to decrease interest in Japanese. He also has noted (and felt) an interest in increasing connections with the world outside North America and Japan. He went to Australia in 2006 for a conference and had a chance to meet many people there and see a thriving Japanese education world.
Jacobsen discussed the future of ATJ: he is planning to set up a task force to talk about effective ways of fundraising for an endowment so that the office and administration can be supported. An endowment to support $100,000/year would need a fund of at least $2 million. He asked the Board members to think about connections in the business community or others who might be approached once the fundraising campaign is launched. A fundraising campaign will need a variety of tactics, both large and small, to buuild an endowment. Smaller ways include encouraging members to become lifetime members (which contribute to the endowment account), to make bequests in their wills, and so on.
President-Elect Mari Noda commented that it is important to be in touch and work with other organizations around the world that support professionals in Japanese-related research and teaching. She plans to go to the 2008 ICJLE in Pusan.
Noda also expressed support for the fundraising campaign. She has worked with a development officer at OSU who advised that it is important to identify and introduce potential donors. It might be important to hire someone to help with development if we can identify the potential donors. She also mentioned the need to get the members involved: large-scale donors want to know that the members are excited about the organization and support it themselves. She suggested that ATJ launch a small campaign within the organization, asking for donations.
Enrollments are increasing at the advanced levels, so Noda would like to see more emphasis in ATJ programs on advanced students.
Minutes: The minutes of the Spring 2007 Board meeting were approved, with a provision for friendly amendments and corrections to be sent to the ATJ office within two weeks; the corrected minutes will be published in the November 2007 issue of the Newsletter.
Membership Report: The number of ATJ members remains quite constant, reaching an annual high of between 800 and 900 members. Current membership (as of August 31, 2007) is 822. The number of part-time instructor members is 53, twice the number in 2005, the first year after the category was created. Five- and 10-year memberships, as well as lifetime memberships, have increased: the numbers currently stand at 99 5-year members, 17 ten-year members, and 16 lifetime members. Lifetime membership dues go into the endowment fund, which has now reached $13,500. Complimentary memberships include the Japan Foundation, the Diet Library, and the NCJLT Board members.
Discussion of ways to increase membership brought out a number of suggestions: publicizing ATJ more among junior college faculty, at universities in Japan where large number of students study JFL (Waseda, Sophia, ICU, Kansai Gaidai, Aoyama Gakuin), and at conferences of literature specialists.
Ikeda, Zimmerman, and Ericson offered to work on promoting the journal and Seminar to younger literature scholars. Noda suggested creating a new category of student member without receiving the journal, at a lower membership rate of $10. Reade suggested creating the category of high school teacher, also at a lower membership rate of $10. Noda mentioned that the outreach conference organizer at the University of Pittsburgh includes one-year ATJ memberships in the conference budget, which pays for memberships for the (mostly high school) teachers who attend the conference. Zimmerman suggested a bulleted "Reasons Why You Should Join ATJ" promotional piece. Reade offered to work on this. A special page on the ATJ website was suggested, as well as asking for testimonials from prominent members. Targeting students who are doing licensure programs was suggested.
One way to raise the profile of ATJ among graduate students might be to institute a program of travel grant(s) for graduate students to attend the ATJ Seminar. Another Seminar-related suggestion was to reserve space each year and solicit proposals for a graduate student panel. Another suggestion was to send a promotional piece by email to faculty members and ask them to forward it to their students. Schmidt will collect ideas for promoting membership and Seminar participation.
Membership Directory: The membership directory was discussed. This year the directory was mailed without an envelope, and one member expressed concern about having contact information stolen. The fact that institutional members (libraries) also receive the directory means that it can sit on library shelves, with the attendant risk of the theft of personal information. It was decided to move toward an online or on-demand membership directory and discontinue the mailing of printed directories, especially to institutional members.
Financial Report: The annual report of ATJ's accounts was distributed, as well as a report on the current records of income and expenditure for the first eight months of 2007. The current available balances in ATJ's checking and money-market accounts total $100,122.
Special mention was made of a $5,000 bequest from former member Sumako Kimizuka and a gift from Yoko McClain in memory of Hiroshi Miyaji. These gifts will be added to the Endowment Fund and acknowledged in the newsletter and other media.
Seminar registration fees were collected for the first time in 2007. Registration fees totaled about $3,150. It was noted that membership income and Seminar registrations cover only the journal, newsletter and other publications, partial Seminar expenses, and partial Board meeting expenses. Staff time and other office expenses can be covered only with the help of grants. Most grants fund only the direct expense associated with projects; ATJ's only source of overhead and staff financial support is the annual grant for the Bridging Project, which has been supported for more than 10 years by the Japan-US Friendship Commission.
Journal Editor's Report: Vance reported that the October 2007 special issue on Study Abroad for Advanced Skills (edited by Ginger Marcus) would be published before the end of the year. In 2008 the April issue will be a "regulat" issue, and the October issue will be a special issue on Pedagogy co-edited by Mutsuko Endo Hudson and Seiichi Makino.
In line with ATJ's growing move away from paper for publications and services, Vance offered to investigate the cost of producing the journal on CD as an alternative to paper publication.
Bridging Project Report: Schmidt reported on the Bridging Project, which promotes study abroad in Japan and administers a scholarship program that funds about 100 scholarships a year for students studying in Japan for a semester or a year. The program receives more applications every year and has contributed to a great increase in the number of American students going to Japan (up from about 1,800 annually in 1996 to more than 4,500 now). Schmidt has begun doing follow-up research with alumni of the program to find out how their careers and lives were shaped by the experience of study abroad in Japan and is also collaborating with Dewey on a major research project to assess the impact of study abroad on language proficiency development.
Seminar Committee Report: Seminar Committee chair Warnick asked Board members to send him suggestions for a keynote speaker. One suggestion was to pay tribute to the late Miyaji-sensei (for ATJ members who do not attend the AAS conference and so will not be able to hear the special roundtable session).
Deadline for proposals is October 20. Heritage SIG proposals review will be consistent with others. Last year, there were about 100 submissions (2 literature, 10 linguistics, 12 SLA, 70 pedagogy). Sixty were accepted: 100% ling, 64% SLA, 100% lit, 61% pedagogy.
Registration last year was $15 for members, $10 for member students; $50 for non-members. There were no complaints last year, and the fees covered most of the AV cost and the keynote speaker honorarium. The Board approved the 2008 fee schedule of $15 in advance, $20 on-site for members ($10 for students), and $50 for non-members.
The Board approved Schmidt's suggestion that ATJ not have a booth in the Exhibit Hall at the AAS conference in 2008 because the cost has increased and not many members visit the booth.
The ATJ's designated panel paying tribute to Miyaji-sensei was accepted; Maggie Child will chair the panel, and presenters will be Carole Cavanaugh, Nobuo Ogawa, Bill Kelly, Seiichi Makino, and Mutsuko Endo Hudson.
Nominating Committee Report: Committee chair Ikeda asked Board members for suggestions of people to be candidates for President-Elect and three Board seats (one for a literature specialist and two at-large). The list of nominees will be finalized by mid-November and the nominees asked to submit their biographical statements by mid-December. The ballot will be sent out to members in January.
A memo prepared by the office on electronic voting was discussed. Issues include financial benefit (clear, once the system is set up), privacy issues, and posisble glitches with technology. The Board approved online voting for 2008, with the office to select a technology platform based on ease of use and preservation of privacy.
Japanese National Honor Society: Reade reported on the high school program and made recommendations for college-level program. The Board discussed the qualifications for nomination to JNHS, including GPA (general and for Japanese) and minimum number of semesters of study required. Phi Sigma Iota, the foreign langauge honor society, requires three years of study of foreign language, 3.0 average overall, 3.5 average in Japanese, completion of 5 semesters or 7 quarters. The Board decided to be consistent with these standards and to charge a $20.00 initial charter fee and $10.00 per student for membership. A task force was set up, with Reade, Hatasa, and Dewey as members. It will work with the office to develop a Constitution, press releases, etc., and to begin the program in spring 2008.
Administration: The Board discussed how the change in ATJ's governance structure in 2002 has been working. The triumvirate ATJ presidency means that the organization relies heavily on the administrarive officer, whose position depends 100% on grant money. This provides stability for the operation, but the responsibility (even authority) of the office is high because none of the executive officers are physically near/at the office. Schmidt is Administrative Director of ATJ and Executive Director of the Alliance and the Bridging Project. The ATJ Board may appoint an Executive Director, but Susan has never been appointed as one. The previous system of a president who serves for three years had more continuity.
Suggestions to be considered for possible revision in the future included (a) a two-year president + two executive committee members, or (b) a two-year president + a two-year president-elect. This discussion will be continued.
The meeting closed with a special presentation, requested by the officers, on the first year of the AP Japanese Language and Culture program.
Respectfully submitted, Susan Schmidt