Maria Ammar, Salt Lake Community College, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA

Dear HEIS Community,

Welcome to our December issue of HEIS News, a newsletter for our Higher Education Interest Section (HEIS) members, other TESOL members, and all professionals who work in the field. I hope you are all doing well, adapting and adjusting to life during the pandemic.

This issue has two articles, each covering important areas. The first article, “Art to Validate Identity” comes from Kayla Sanders and Mary Newbegin, who write about how they incorporated art in their classes to support their students’ learning, The second article, “Examing Social (In)justices through Literary Narratives in a Community College ESL Writing Course”, written by Dr. Quanisha Charles, explores the area of social injustice and the perceptions of a group of students, examined through a survey and the students’ writing.

On October 1, 2020, HEIS offered its first webinar, “HEIS Leaders Lockdown Stories.” The webinar was presented by HEIS past Chair Maria Rossana Ramirez-Avila, with co-presenters Chair-elect Diana Estrada and me. The presenters and participants discussed how the COVID-19 pandemic had affected their work as educators and professionals in the field, and what changes had been made at work to deal with the pandemic. Participants included HEIS members from different countries, included Ecuador and Costa Rica. It was a very information discussion to learn about others’ experiences and how they had to adapt to their new circumstances. We hope to have more webinars like this one in the future. If you have suggestions for the next HEIS webinar, please email Kelly Tracy, HEIS Professional Development Coordinator.

When you have time, I hope you all will take some time to post questions, news, or comments about current happenings in the TESOL world to our HEIS community board in MyTESOL. We enjoy seeing your postings, especially when it starts an important discussion that gets others talking, thinking, and moving.

We hope to improve member engagement through HEIS News, our HEIS community board in MyTESOL, and HEIS webinars. We welcome your involvement in any of these areas.

Best regards,

Maria Ammar

Chair, TESOL Higher Education Interest Section