Dear HEIS Community,

Another academic year has come!

As was echoed in many of the conversations at TESOL 2017, this has been a trying time for those of us who work with and amidst international students (especially in the U.S. context!). I hope that the messages and articles in this newsletter give you some focus, hope, and energy to continue the incredible work that you do every day.

I would like to thank every member of our IS who contributed a proposal for TESOL 2018! This year, we had 243 submissions for the Higher Education Interest Section (HEIS) alone! Unfortunately, we cannot accept every proposal, and I do have to say that final decisions for acceptances were quite difficult because of the high quality of submissions this year. We were only able to accept a small portion of proposals because of time and space constraints, so do not get discouraged if you were not accepted!

As I mentioned previously, we are a part of an organization that is in transition toward the future in many ways. TESOL continues its push toward strengthening our interest sections, soon to be transitioning to communities of practice. We also continue to move toward a renewed vision for our future TESOL conventions, with changes in the submissions/adjudication process for proposals. In all, TESOL is working to continue to improve and to serve its membership. More on that in the coming months.

For those of you who may be interested in serving in a leadership role for HEIS, you will be receiving information in the coming weeks about future opportunities. Serving in a leadership role for TESOL and for our interest section is incredibly rewarding, both personally and professionally.

Please remember that our myTESOL community platform is a resource for all of us to discuss and keep informed about issues affecting our interest sections, 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.

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.