Greetings! As you all know, I officially became the chair during this year’s convention in Portland, Oregon. I am excited to begin this new term as the chair and would like to thank several people. First of all, I feel very fortunate to have had the opportunity to get to know Eli Hinkel, our past chair, whom I have enjoyed working with so much. Eli will be serving as the past chair until the 2015 convention. During the time we have worked together, Eli has helped me understand and learn how ISs work, how we, as leaders, can support our own interest section and serve the TESOL International Association in the best ways possible. Her strong sense of humor absolutely has made our work less overwhelming and more fun. Thank you, Eli, for your leadership, guidance, help, collaboration, and fabulous work! I also would like to thank Jana and Ben for their strong contributions to ALIS. They both put a lot of time and effort into ALIS Forum, and I hope you will continue to support and help them by sending articles and news so that they can publish them in our newsletter. Special thanks always go to you, of course, ALIS members! If ALIS is one of the most visible and active Interest Sections, it is thanks to you.

Our business meeting in Portland this year had a very special speaker and wonderful audience. Eli organized such a great meeting to celebrate ALIS’s 40th year and it was very generous of Dr. Robert Kaplan to come and talk to us. It was such a privilege to listen to him, and I hope we get many more opportunities in the future to interact with and learn from Robert. As you all know, in addition to the Academic Session we organized, ALIS was involved with two InterSections at the 2014 convention. The turnout was great for each session. In particular, over 250 participants attended our Academic Session in which Drs. Bonny Norton, Patricia (Patsy) Duff, and Kelleen Toohey discussed their most recent work on identity. Thank you very much if you were able to make it to one, some, or all of those sessions!

I am very excited to tell you that another amazing convention is just ahead of us and ALIS is so ready for it. Dr. Nihat Polat, our incoming chair, has been working diligently to organize InterSections and one Academic Session. A number of wonderful speakers have already confirmed participation in the Academic Session, and you will hear more from Nihat about the speakers and the session soon. I am also very happy to report that the number of proposals submitted to ALIS for the 2015 convention has increased by 15.9% this year. Yay! We also have a good number of reviewers assisting us this year in the proposal review process. Thank you, thank you, and thank you!

Finally, if you have any thoughts, feedback, ideas, concerns, please feel free to email me or Nihat Polat. Your input is always appreciated.

Sincerely,

Hayriye Kayi-Aydar