Letter from the Chair

Kyle Swanson, Ph.D., Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA

Hello!

I hope you had a wonderful summer, and I also hope that you’re excited for the new academic year!

As many of you know, we continue to see policy changes in the US that affect international graduate students – Most recently, the transition from a “Duration of Status” approach to a “Fixed Period of Admission” approach. Our students as well as our own work is, of course, impacted by such changes, and I strongly encourage you to stay apprised in general, to find out where in your institution to refer students with issues or questions, and to stay connected to our wonderful community.

In terms of TESOL news, I want to thank everyone who applied to be a reviewer, served as a reviewer, served as a strand coordinator, and/or submitted a proposal for the TESOL 2026 Virtual Convention and the TESOL 2027 International Convention & Expo in Houston. Additionally, I want to thank everyone who applied to be a reviewer or submitted an application for a TESOL award. We always want to make sure that the IS and its interests are represented in TESOL more broadly, and the participation of IS members in larger TESOL initiatives helps us achieve this.

Looking ahead, you can look forward to a very rich year in our IS, thanks to the members of our Steering Committee! 

• Qiusi Zhang will be leading the charge for us to post on our MyTESOL home page at least once a week as well as to post on our discussion page at least twice a month. She’d love for you to post or comment on posts!

• Sarah Emory and Elka Kristó-Nagy will be producing new issues of our IS newsletter, and I know they would be delighted for you to contribute. 

• Jen Brondell and Jaime-Erin Parry will be coordinating our monthly webinars. If you have ideas for topics or speakers, reach out to them! 

• Of course, any IS member should also feel free to set up an ITA IS Working Group on any topic and at any time.

Looking even further ahead, we’re still waiting to find out about proposal acceptances, but we already know that for the TESOL 2027 International Convention & Expo in Houston, we’re going to have an ITA IS academic session, organized by our Chair-Elect Eva Miszoglad. Additionally, we’re going to have three intersection sessions, one with the Higher Education IS, one with the Program Administration IS, and one with the Speaking, Pronunciation and Listening IS. On our end, these are being organized by our Members-at-Large Kostya Fesenko and Ginessa Payne. We’ll also have our annual business meeting, and of course, we’ll have our ITA IS Dinner, also organized by Member-at-Large Ginessa Payne. We’ll be sending out more information about all these events as they get closer!

Beyond TESOL, I am always glad to see the complementary parts of our broader ITA community so active. ITA content was well represented at the Summer Institute of the Consortium on Graduate Communication, and the independent ITA Listserv is always lively – If you’re not on it, just ask Stephen Looney ([email protected]) to add you. Finally, an independent committee has been formed to look into reviving the ITA Symposium, which would be another wonderful resource for our community – If you have ideas or would like to get involved, you can reach out to Emily Montogomery ([email protected]).

Happy fall semester, and if I or the IS can be of service at any point, just reach out!

Best,

Kyle

Kyle Swanson, Ph.D., is Chair of the International Teaching Assistants Interest Section for 2026-2027. He is the Associate Director of an ITA program, the Oral English Proficiency Program at Purdue University. He can be reached at [email protected] and/or [email protected].