Letter from the PAIS Co-Editors
A special note of gratitude to our readers and our contributors to the Fall 2026 PAIS newsletter. As your new PAIS newsletter co-editors, we have ourselves embarked upon a partnership that connects us as TESOL women leaders. Working on this issue of the newsletter has not only enabled us to connect with and learn from our colleagues but it has opened an opportunity for partnership that may not have been possible without TESOL’s global reach. As we discussed the benefits of collaboration and relationship building in our work, we realized that our authors threaded this theme throughout their contributions. What we are sharing with our readers are learnings, reflections and lessons on how language programs should be viewed as strategic institutional assets whose success depends on coordinated partnerships across campus and beyond.
We begin with the article A Spoonful of Water: Raising Visibility with Shrinking Resources in which Eric Grunwald of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology shares how English language programs can strengthen their visibility despite reduced resources by taking a strategic, low-cost approach to communication. Grunwald emphasizes the importance of clarifying program mission and goals before using practical strategies to share the impact of English language programs. Relationship-building especially is a central strategy to broadening visibility on campus. Through his insight and experience with these strategies, Grunwald shares ways in which visibility of English language programs can grow through intentional, creative, and data-informed efforts, even when funding is limited.
A strategic mindset continues in To Centralize or Not to Centralize the Curriculum: An Essential Question for Program Administrators. DJ Kaiser from Webster University’s TESOL program provides us with his critical reflections of growing the TESOL program from a small, instructor-driven program in St. Louis, Missouri into a large international program in Uzbekistan serving more than 1,800 students across many course sections. To manage that scale, the program adopted a centralized curriculum to improve fairness, consistency, student flexibility, and instructor efficiency. Although centralization created trade-offs, Kaiser concludes it became the most practical way to sustain quality and equity at scale.
Drawing on Purdue University’s PLaCE program, Nadezda Pimenova guides us on how to build strategic partnerships in Partnerships that Build Bridges: Three Lessons for Language Program Leaders. Pimenova highlights that effective leaders build partnerships intentionally by understanding the institutional landscape, defining roles, and aligning collaborations with shared priorities. Strong, mutually beneficial partnerships not only expand program capacity, improve student support and strengthen institutional relevance but also help language programs adapt and thrive amid changing needs and limited resources.
We conclude our fall newsletter edition with an interview with a woman leader who has experienced the transformation of English for Academic Purposes (EAP) as a declining program to a strategic institutional asset. Corinne Whitney of Georgian College, Ontario speaks to us about the ways in which Canadian EAP programs have been affected by funding, enrolment, policy, and organizational change and what value EAP leaders and administrators continue to bring to their institutions despite those disruptions. Through her interview Whitney guides us to the central theme of this newsletter: EAP expertise should not be seen as limited to language programs; it is a strategic institutional asset that can support learner success, inclusion, partnerships, and long-term resilience.
Together, the contributions in this issue remind us that English language programs are most powerful when they are understood not in insolation contexts but as partners in institutional growth, student success, and inclusive education. We hope these reflections inspire continued collaboration, advocacy, and leadership across the PAIS community.
Ana-Marija Petrunic and Tsigereda Negussie