Dear HEIS Community,

At TESOL 2017 in Seattle, I had the honor of assuming the HEIS chair position, and I have to say that it was an absolute pleasure meeting and discussing our community with attendees at our HEIS open meeting. For those of you who might not have been able to attend the open meeting, we discussed some exciting changes on the horizon for the various interest sections, including a future revamping of the adjudication process for conference proposals, the creation of new professional learning communities, and short- and long-term improvements across the ISs and the organization.

I must also thank the various leaders and past chairs who served as mentors for me and who have contributed much to our community over the years, especially our immediate past chairs, Katherine Earley and Yogesh Sinha. Finally, a big thank you to Maria Ammar, who is the glue for our community, serving HEIS as our newsletter editor and our myTESOL community manager.

We have accomplished much as an IS, but there are some ways in which I hope to contribute to the furthering of the work of those who came before me. This includes furthering long- and short-term goals for our IS by working with the past and incoming chairs to create a strategy for building upon our previous successes. Over the coming year, we have an ambitious agenda, and I hope that we will be able to accomplish some of the following:

• Revisit our HEIS statement of purpose and goals as a foundation for how we operate throughout the year
• Consider ways to streamline and make our IS leadership positions both sustainable and purposeful
• Develop a strategic plan to guide the short- and long-term strategies for the IS
• Increase opportunities for professional development between conferences
• Maintain and increase participation in our myTESOL community page

Many of these endeavors will be discussed and developed through our myTESOL community platform, so I hope that you will watch for and contribute to discussions.

Lastly, this is your interest section. So, I hope that you will be/remain active on our myTESOL community page and on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/tesol.heis).

This is an exciting time to be with TESOL and HEIS, and I am looking forward to our collective journey.

Very best,

Kevin Martin

Chair, TESOL Higher Education Interest Section

Kevin J. Martin is the associate dean for the School of Education for Virginia International University in Fairfax, Virginia, USA.