Affiliate News - November 2022 (Plain Text Version)
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CATESOL CULTIVATES STARS OF SERVICE: SUSAN GAER AND MARGI WALD
The TESOL Virginia French Allen Award for Scholarship and Service, established in 1990 by Dr. Allen's former students in honor of her long-time contributions to the field, honors an ESOL teacher who has provided professional development and outstanding service to a TESOL International Associate affiliate. CATESOL has nurtured two members who recently received this special award, which grants each recipient a three-year membership or membership extension in TESOL, including a subscription to TESOL Quarterly.
Susan Gaer is the winner of the 2022 TESOL Virginia French Allen award. She is the only officer who has served CATESOL for five consecutive years in an executive role, from 2017 to 2022. As the California affiliate transitioned from a one-year to a two-year presidency, she served as President-elect for two years, followed by two years as President during the COVID-19 pandemic, and she is currently active as the immediate Past President. Besides her work teaching adults – she retired as ESL Professor at Santa Ana College – Susan has provided professional development for TESOL, CATESOL, OTAN, the U.S. Department of State, and other organizations, informing and motivating language teachers around the world. Her work has enabled teachers to become more adept at using computers in education, to learn to use learning management systems, to teach in blended/online classrooms, and to employ project-based learning, engaging students in real-life projects while simultaneously learning the language. She has served as TESOL CALL Interest Section Chair, TESOL Professional Development Committee member, TESOL Nominating Committee Chair, and TESOL Online Instructor. A long-time CATESOL member, Susan Gaer served in many capacities, including Adult Level Chair and Technology Committee member, before assuming the role of our top leader. Under her guidance, our organization has professionalized and been reinvigorated. Through her stewardship as President, she has assembled a capable team of colleagues to serve as leaders throughout the organization, with whom she maintains regular and frequent communication. She has helped CATESOL advance into the 21st century not only by offering PD training and virtual conferences, but also by encouraging the Board to engage in important and impactful discussions, codify procedures, update policies, mitigate losses, and turn unexpected occurrences into opportunities for growth. CATESOL’s membership increased by 34% during her presidency. Of these new members, 15% are students, an important factor for the depth of our organization, as students are our English language teachers of tomorrow. As for CATESOL’s financial health, Susan has moved our organization from near bankruptcy, a detrimental condition that was revealed at the inception of her term as President-elect, to near solvency. Like a parent nurturing an ailing child, she loaned a five-figure amount of her own to the organization to infuse it with life until self-sustenance could be attained. She prioritized and cut expenditures; found volunteers (and volunteered endlessly herself) for jobs that previously cost money; surrounded herself with members who could help accurately project, recommend, and document income and expenses for monthly operations and seasonal conferences; authorized small non-member fees for PD events; and even ran several free-will funding campaigns for CATESOL on her social media.
Margi Wald is the winner of the 2021 TESOL Virginia French award. Though thoroughly involved in her work as a lecturer and Summer ESL program director at the University of California at Berkeley, Margi makes time for professional development in both TESOL and CATESOL. A member of TESOL since 1993, Margi has presented at TESOL’s annual convention every year since 1994 and began giving back to TESOL in 1998 when she became the Higher Education Interest Section newsletter editor. In 2005, she stepped down to help form and edit the newsletter for the Second Language Writing Interest Section. She then transitioned ten years later to work as an Annual Convention chair (Seattle 2017), member of the Conferences Professional Council, and Conference Strand coordinator. In all these positions, she worked to help TESOL members find venues for engaging in professional development and for sharing their pedagogical practices with a wider audience. A member of CATESOL since 1998, Margi started on the CATESOL Board in 2002 as a member of the Annual Conference team and soon after as an editorial assistant for The CATESOL Journal. Since then, there has not been even one year that Margi was not doing something for the CATESOL board. In 2012, Margi’s contributions were acknowledged with the Sadae Iwataki Award for Outstanding Service to CATESOL, the highest award bestowed upon a member, for her outstanding work with the organization. In her continued commitment, she has chaired so many committees and presented her teaching materials at so many conferences for CATESOL that there are too many to list. Not only has she been an untiring editor, but she has also helped move The CATESOL Journal online, first to one platform and then to another, to make the organization and its members’ scholarship more accessible to all. When the pandemic necessitated major transformations for conferences, Margi sprang into action to help. Each of the three recent virtual conferences that CATESOL has held used a different platform with different delivery tools and protocols. Taking on the newly created role of Remote Platform Coordinator, Margi has faced each platform’s steep learning curve with persistence, aplomb, and excellence, giving the rest of the conference team the skills and confidence to succeed. She has been an indefatigable conference committee leader and advisor, always ready to lend a helping hand to get a job done, and always ready to mentor members wanting to get their feet wet with presenting, organizing, and publishing. Prowess Under Pandemic Pressure The educational world’s shut down in March 2020 spurred Susan Gaer to galvanize a group of CATESOL members to provide free online training for teachers. In response to her call, within 72 hours, a dozen passionate teachers leaped into Zoom web conferencing and offered nine straight days of workshops that helped teachers prepare for remote instruction. Margi Wald was among them. These leaders provided interactive workshops and discussion sessions morning, afternoon, and evening; helped teachers consider how to recast their lessons for distance education; gave suggestions for creating community and engaging students, and encouraged and supported them through this new and challenging conversion. Thanks to strong and innovative guardianship, CATESOL leads TESOL Affiliates in offering virtual conferencing. In a newly implemented professional development program, coordinators of levels, chapters, and interest groups regularly meet, share, present, and work together via web conferencing. Whereas CATESOL normally distinguishes member and non-member conference rates, 2020 began a tradition of offering member rates to TESOL International Affiliates for spring and fall virtual conferences, thus widening our PD reach far beyond our state borders.
TESOL did not hold in-person conventions in 2020 and 2021 during the coronavirus pandemic. Besides a private celebration for the two of them the author’s home, at the 2022 TESOL Convention in Pittsburgh, Susan made a point of inviting Margi to the ceremony where the Virginia French Allen Award winner was proclaimed to share the moment and highlight CATESOL’s accomplishments. CATESOL sincerely appreciates TESOL International for recognizing Susan Gaer and Margi Wald’s superior efforts and outstanding service by conferring upon each of them in succession this award for service and scholarship. Biodata Marsha J. Chan, BA, MA, Stanford University, is a Publisher and Consultant at Sunburst Media, ESL Professor Emerita at Mission College, textbook and multimedia author, and presenter of over 300 professional workshops. She has served the US Department of State as an English Language Specialist. As Pronunciation Doctor, she offers thousands of free videos for English language learners at https://www.youtube.com/PronunciationDoctor. |
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