Changing Higher Education in Japan?

The Chronicle: Daily news: 05/25/2007 -- 08: Japan's New Science Adviser Wants to Shake Up Higher Education

Changing the entrance exam system might be useful. Changing the hierarchical system? Hmm...it would be relatively easy to change the system, but that doesn't address cultural practices, which is much harder to change--especially with a top-down approach.

Dr. Ortmeier-Hooper!

Christina Ortmeier-Hooper has successfully defended her dissertation on Tuesday, May 15, 2007. Congratulations, Christina! Well done!

A New Frontier

I haven't been able to post anything on my blog for a while. It was partly because of many events happening at the same time--teaching, administrative duties, hosting guest speakers (Bruce Horner and Min-Zhan Lu), dissertation defenses and exams as well as CCCC, AAAL, Temple University conference and other speaking engagements. But there was another big reason: I was moving toward a major transition in my professional career.

In January 2008, I will be joining the English Department at the Arizona State University as an Associate Professor. There, I will work with doctoral students in Rhetoric, Composition and Linguistics; master's students in TESOL and Linguistics; and undergraduate linguistics majors. I will also be working with students in the new Ph.D. Program in Applied Linguistics.

I will, of course, have an opportunity to teach advanced graduate seminars on second language writing on a regular basis.

ASU is a great place to pursue my interest in preparing the next generation of second language writing researchers and teachers for obvious reasons: the program structure is ideal for my interdisciplinary work.

It seems that there is already a growing interest among ASU graduate students in second language writing. Over the years, I have met a number of impressive graduate students from ASU with an interest in second language writing, and I am really looking forward to collaborating with them on projects and contributing to their professional development.

It's also exciting to be able to work with a large number of outstanding faculty members in my own fields. Within the English Department, my colleagues in linguistics/TESOL will include Karen Adams, Dawn Bates, Elly Van Gelderen, Mark James and Roy Major; rhetoric and composition colleagues include Philip Bernick, Sharon Crowley, Greg Glau, Maureen Daly Goggin, Peter Goggin, Keith Miller, John Ramage, Duane Roen and Patricia Webb.

Some of my colleagues in other departments and campuses will include Akua Duku Anokye, James Paul Gee, Carole Edelsky, Chris Faltis, Patricia Friedrich, Sarah Hudelson, Jeff MacSwan, Barry Maid, Aya Matsuda, Kellie Rolstad, Bryan Smith and Terry Wiley.

I will be leaving UNH at the end of Spring 2007. In June, I will go to Malaysia to speak at Asia TEFL conference. I will spend the rest of the summer as a visiting researcher at the University of Hong Kong in June and then at the Graduate School of International Development at Nagoya University from July through the end of September.

At Nagoya University, I will teach a course on qualitative research in second language writing. For the rest of the time, I will be working on various research and writing projects while preparing for the Symposium on Second Language Writing, which will take place in September at Nagoya Gakuin University.

What that means, of course, is that my family has to relocate to the Valley of the Sun in May or June. It'll be a challenge, but I'm hoping that it'll somehow work out.

Congratulations, Christina!

Christina Ortmeier-Hooper, one of my doctoral advisees, has accepted a tenure-track position in the School of Education at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Christina also received the D. Scott Enright TESOL Interest Section Service Award at this year's TESOL. She spearheaded the effort to create the Second Language Writing Interest Section at TESOL and served as its founding chair.

Congratulations, Christina! UMass is lucky to have you!

CCCC/TESOL Future Convention Dates

Here is the latest:

2008
CCCC: New Orleans, April 2-5 
TESOL: New York, April 2-5

2009
CCCC: San Francisco, March 11-14 
TESOL: Denver, March 25-28

2010
CCCC: Louisville, March 17-20
TESOL: Boston, March 24-27

2011
CCCC: Atlanta, April 6-9
TESOL: New Orleans, March 16-19

2012
CCCC: St. Louis, March 21-24
TESOL: TBA

2013
CCCC: TBA
TESOL: Dallas, March 20-23

UW-Milwaukee Visit

I've been too lazy busy to update my blog, but here is a report from my visit to University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

My primary hosts were Dani Goldstein and Shereen Inayatulla, doctoral students in rhetoric and composition at UWM--it was great getting to know them. They picked me up at the airport and drove me around, which brought back lots of fond memories from my Wisconsin days. What a treat!

I also got to meet many interesting students, including Rie Kumaki, a doctoral student from Japan. It was also nice to see some familiar faces--Chuck Schuster, Pat Goldstein, Kathy Kaye, Sheryl Slocum and Mary Louise Buley-Meissner, as well as Mike McDonald, a UNH graduate. Mickey Noonan also came to the talk and sent me a kind message afterwards--thanks!

Dani, Mike and Rie served as "respondents" for my talk, but after looking at their "responses," I though it would be a great idea to start with their questions and then to give my talk in response, so I asked them to go first. I thought it worked out well. I hope that wasn't too much of an imposition.

After the talk, we went out for a few drinks at a local pub. (Milwaukee has always been known for beer, but it seems to have gotten even better since my last visit in the late 1990s.) We then went to Alice's house for a nice potluck dinner.

This visit was initiated by a group of graduate students who had read and discussed some of my work. They told me that they were not sure if I would accept an invitation from graduate students, so they asked Alice to initiate the invitation. Of course I would have accepted it if it came from graduate students directly!

Funding for United States Study

http://www.iiebooks.org/funforunstat.html

This is a resource I wish I had when I was a student. Whenever I looked for external sources of funding for my studies, I was discouraged because most of them were for U.S. permanent residents or citizens. Many of the grants were also off-limits to international graduate students unless they had a collaborator who qualified.

I haven't actually seen the contents of this book, so I'm not sure if this helps, but here is one place international students might look for funding to support their studies or research projects.