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Dear SLWIS Members,
The thermometer has been plunging below freezing here in
Delaware for the past several weeks, so it must be about time to pack up
my thermals for the TESOL
Convention in Chicago, which brings to an end my tenure as
Chair of the Second Language Writing Interest Section.
This has been a year of transition for SLWIS and TESOL. For the
past two years, we have been involved in lengthy and often impassioned
discussions about the future of the interest sections as TESOL moved to
implement its new governance plan and strategic agenda. As I reported in
the October newsletter, SLWIS leaders have taken an active role in
reshaping these plans in order to preserve the strengths of our interest
section and pave the way for exciting new opportunities. President de
Jong and the Board have graciously heard us and other IS colleagues, and
towards the end of 2017, they voted in a new structure of Communities
of Practices, within which SLWIS will remain an interest
section.
As a team, we have worked to define what SLWIS will look like
as a Community of Practice. We will keep our existing leadership
structure with a broad-based steering committee that guides the
community and cultivates new chairs; our popular newsletter (thank you
again to Elena Shvidko and Ilka Kostka for another wonderful issue!); an
active online community; and the three-year sequence of Incoming Chair,
Chair, and Past Chair. We will enhance our year-round offerings,
including more webinars and discussions. And although we will no longer
be directly involved in adjudicating conference proposals, we will
continue to organize academic sessions and intersections that bring
current debates and cutting-edge scholarship to the convention. Our goal
is to engage you, our membership, and meet your professional and
scholarly needs in the field of Second Language Writing.
And that’s where you come in. If you have an idea for the
future of SLWIS, please share it with us by email, on the discussion
list, or at the SLWIS Open Meeting in Chicago (Wednesday, March 28,
6:45-8:15pm). Or better yet, run for an elected committee position next
year! We are especially looking to recruit non-university teachers and
colleagues outside North America for future positions so that our
Steering Committee is truly representative of our diverse
membership.
The strength of this interest section has always been our
members’ willingness to serve the profession, as Chair or
member-at-large, as a conference speaker or proposal reviewer, or simply
by answering a colleague’s question on the listserv. We have an
outstanding succession of chairs for the next two years with Tanita
Saenkhum and then Betsy Gilliland, and I know you will give them your
full support as we move forward as the Community of Practice we have
truly always been.
Thank you to the Steering Committee for all your efforts and
especially to Ryan Miller, who steps down this year after serving as the
2016-2017 Chair and current Past Chair. Thank you also to Hee-Seung
Kang and Betsy Gilliland, whose terms as members-at-large end soon, and
to our online community manager, Elena Shvidko. And thank you all for
this opportunity to lead SLWIS through some interesting times! I look
forward to seeing you in person in Chicago or virtually online in the
coming months and years.
Best wishes
Nigel Caplan
Chair, SLWIS
Associate Professor, University of Delaware |
