Patricia (Pat) Kyle is Director for Languages Online for the College of Liberal Arts Instructional Technology Services and Lecturer in French in the Department of French and Italian at the University of Texas at Austin. She holds the PhD in French Linguistics from Indiana University with specializations in Applied French Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition as well as the MA in Information and Learning Technologies from the University of Colorado. Pat has taught French language and linguistics, second language acquisition, and language teaching methodology at the graduate and undergraduate levels and specializes in the design, implementation, management, and staffing of digital language programs. In 2024, she received the AAUSC award for innovation in curriculum development for her work on Confluences francophones: Explorations linguistiques et culturelles, a digital intermediate French course borne of a partnership between the University of Texas at Austin and Carnegie Mellon University. She and co-authors Yasmina Fawaz and Fanny Macé have just published a digitally native beginning-to-intermediate French program entitled, “Connexions francophones: Identités culturelles et linguistiques” on McGraw Hill’s Connect platform for use across learning environments, from traditional face-to-face to fully asynchronous virtual classrooms. Away from the computer, Pat enjoys hiking with her wonderful Golden Retriever, Saffron.

As one with significant background in both university language program direction and college-level program administration, I am ready to take on the challenges of the job of Treasurer of the AAUSC. My practical qualifications include experience managing accounts large and small, from those of the Alliance française de Louisville where I served as Executive Director, to smaller project and grant budgets for educational initiatives carried out at the University of Texas at Austin and elsewhere. In addition, my background in business education, (I hold the MBA with specialization in Management), has prepared me well to meet the responsibilities inherent in overseeing AAUSC funds, preparing and presenting AAUSC financial reports, and filing tax and other official documents on behalf of the organization. Thus, I present my candidacy not only because I am qualified for the position, but also because I would appreciate the opportunity to serve the AAUSC, an organization that I have believed in since the 1990s when I was a graduate student excited to get out and help move our profession forward pedagogically and intellectually. If elected, I will proudly serve as AAUSC Treasurer and ensure that our accounts continue to be kept accurately and our funds allocated wisely.

Dr. Jinhui Wu received her M.A. in Chinese Language and Civilization, along with certificates in College Teaching and Language Teaching with Technology, from the University of Colorado Boulder, and her Ph.D. in East Asian Studies, with a certificate in Online Teaching, from the University of Arizona. She currently serves as Coordinator of the Chinese Program at Rollins College, where she is the sole faculty member in Chinese. In this role, she has overseen curriculum development, taught all levels of language instruction, and fostered student engagement through immersive cultural experiences. Before joining Rollins, Dr. Wu taught Chinese language and literature at Reed College, Lafayette College, the University of Colorado Boulder, and the University of Arizona. Her research focuses on Chinese literature, gender and sexuality, and print culture. She has published in peer-reviewed journals and edited volumes in Chinese literary studies and language pedagogy. Dr. Wu has received multiple national and international fellowships and awards, including the Fulbright Fellowship, Cheng & Tsui Professional Development Grant, and Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation Research Grant. A strong advocate of pedagogical innovation, she regularly integrates digital tools into her teaching and brings extensive experience in program development, interdisciplinary collaboration, and inclusive curriculum design in Chinese and Asian Studies.

Having taught at large research universities and small liberal arts colleges, I’ve seen firsthand the varied challenges Asian language programs face—from under-enrollment to curricular isolation—and I’m committed to building structures for sharing solutions across institutional types. At Rollins College, I developed and coordinated the Chinese Program as its sole faculty member, an experience that deepened my understanding of the resource gaps and pedagogical needs faced by solo instructors and small programs. If elected as Asian Languages Section Head, I will work to strengthen communication, collaboration, and visibility across the diverse Asian language programs in our community—including Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Hindi-Urdu, Vietnamese, and others. I am especially committed to supporting less commonly taught languages, contingent faculty, and instructors working in underrepresented or isolated settings. I believe this section can serve as a collaborative space to share pedagogical strategies, build cross-language solidarity, and advocate for institutional support. In this role, I would maintain open communication with the AAUSC Board, organize regular check-ins across language groups, and help create opportunities for collaboration beyond the annual meeting. It would be an honor to serve and support the continued growth, connection, and vitality of our Asian language educator community.

As former German Language Coordinator at Penn State and now Assistant Professor of German and Second Language Acquisition at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, I have been deeply engaged in German language education, teacher training, and program development for 10+ years. My graduate education in the German Department at Georgetown University has provided me with a solid foundation in research-driven, context-sensitive, and collaborative curriculum design and implementation practices, while my post-degree research, administrative, and teaching duties have shaped and continue to shape my perception and perspective on the historical and evolving concerns and needs of our field.

My administrative work has centered on curriculum design, the integration of social justice and traditional language acquisition goals in the basic German language sequence, and the pedagogical training and professional development of graduate student instructors. My research examines language teacher psychology, particularly how language teachers' emotions and beliefs shape their instructional practice, well-being, and professional development. My recent work on post-pandemic language teacher well-being highlights key differences between novice and experienced instructors, with implications for training and support. Currently, I investigate German language teachers’ emotions and beliefs in social-justice-focused classrooms, supported by an ACTFL Research Priorities Grant.

I am honored to be nominated for the position of German Section Convener. As a candidate, I acknowledge the historic and current challenges facing German programs, including shrinking enrollments and the threat of department closures, needs-based innovation for graduate education that enables successful academic and alt-ac careers, ever-increasing cuts to humanities funding, and the invisible labor and support needs of language program administrators (LPAs).

I would approach Convener responsibilities with a strong spirit of collaboration, open communication, and mutual support. I would strive to strengthen collaboration through the opportunities to share local program advocacy and recruitment strategies, the organization of listening sessions to gather insights into LPA and program needs to inform professional development opportunities, and the establishment of a mentorship program between novice and experienced LPAs.

I see this role as an opportunity to enhance the strong foundation of the AAUSC and to support our members in navigating the challenges facing German programs today. I believe that community is a core value in achieving this vision.

I look forward to the possibility of contributing to AAUSC in this capacity and to working and learning with you, my esteemed colleagues, to advance our shared mission. Thank you for your consideration.

I am currently the coordinator of the German Basic Language Program at Michigan State University, where I work with a team of graduate and faculty educators to design, revise, and implement our first- and second-year German curriculum. Since beginning at MSU in 2013, I have had the opportunity to contribute to a variety of collaborative projects related to teaching and learning at the university. Before taking on the role of coordinator, I was part of the instructional team that introduced more inclusive course content and course policies, which aimed to better support students and instructors in the BLP. Serving on the Inclusive Practices Committee and contributing to the Inclusive Pedagogy Initiative built on my work in the classroom, enabling me to participate in conversations that shaped policies and practices related to inclusion and equity in the College of Arts and Letters, as well as work directly with colleagues through workshop programming. I gained further experience in leadership and advocacy as a member of our Department Advisory Committee, where I served a two-year term as one of two representatives for non-tenure track faculty.

As coordinator, my work is guided by a commitment to inclusive and equitable practices in and beyond the classroom. Inclusion and equity also guide my approach to leadership and advocacy, more generally. Inclusive practices, however, are not one-size-fits-all, but must be enacted within specific institutional and organizational contexts. As section head, I would aim to create opportunities and structures for collaboration, exchange, and inclusive decision-making that build on past leadership and existing work both in the German section and in the AAUSC. By listening to what colleagues want and need, the convener can help to ensure that many different voices shape conversations and inform organizational priorities. This includes strategies for recruiting new members and supporting those new to their role as supervisor or coordinator, as well as remaining responsive to current members. Further, given the current challenges facing not only the fields of German and language teaching and learning, but higher education itself in the United States, I see as imperative the continued commitment to building solidarity and developing our capacities for creative advocacy, including advocating for our expertise as program directors and coordinators.

As an Associate Professor in the German Department at Georgetown University, I have been teaching at all five levels of the undergraduate curriculum as well as graduate seminars on foreign language learning and teaching, advanced literacy development and discourse analysis. In my role as Director of Curriculum, I have been actively involved in the maintenance, revision, and evaluation of the content- and language-integrated undergraduate curriculum in collaboration with my colleagues and in mentoring graduate student teachers in the program.

My research interests include literacy-oriented curriculum design, language teacher education, and advanced FL learner. I have published on such topics as materials selection and sequencing in a content and language-integrated curriculum, genre-based pedagogy, FL teacher training, and L2 writing development. My most recent research investigations are related to teacher emotions related to AI in the L2 writing classroom and the use of digital stories for language and literacy development.

I am honored to be nominated for the position of German Section Convener of the AASUC. As an advocate of collegiate foreign language education, I am committed to supporting German language instructors in my home institution and at the national level.

If elected, I will continue to promote collaboration among the AAUSC members in general and creating opportunities for sharing the perspectives and needs of German language instructors in particular. My goals would be to:

• foster communication among the German Section members
• facilitate discussions of the challenges that affect us all (i.e., enrollments, the role of LPD in the departments, use of AI in the language classroom, inclusive teaching, sense of belonging etc.) and effective strategies to overcome them
• serve as liaison between the German section and the AAUSC Board of Directors.
• explore the possibility of collaborating with AATG to increase visibility of AAUSC and engagement of the organization.

I look forward to the opportunity to support our community and represent our collective interests.

Ryan Bessett is an Associate Teaching Professor at the University of California San Diego where he is the Director of the Spanish as a Heritage Language Program and the Intermediate Spanish as a Second Language series within the department of literature. He holds a PhD in Hispanic Linguistics from the University of Arizona. His research interests center around language variation and change, Spanish in contact, bilingualism, Spanish as a heritage language, language acquisition, and Spanish phonology. He is especially interested in the Spanish spoken around the US-Mexican border and through variationist methodology differentiating contact-induced change from language-internal variation by comparing the Spanish of monolingual speakers in Sonora, Mexico to the Southern Arizona bilingual Spanish of speakers who come from families from Sonora. I am honored to have been nominated for the Spanish Language Section Convener position. I am excited at the prospect of meeting other directors/coordinators from around the country and learning from and networking with them. Promoting Spanish education is my passion and as section convener I would work to promote membership through social media and at conferences.

I am honored to have been nominated for the Spanish Language Section Convener position. I am excited at the prospect of meeting other directors/coordinators from around the country and learning from and networking with them. Promoting Spanish education is my passion and as section convener I would work to promote membership through social media and at conferences.

I am Associate Professor of Spanish linguistics at UC Davis, where I also direct the heritage Spanish program. My research focuses on Spanish in the US from the perspective of language variation, contact, and change. I’m also interested in critical approaches to heritage language education and bilingual writing development.

My first priority would be to raise awareness about heritage language and bilingual education in the context of Spanish, as a way to encourage language maintenance in the Latinx population and to address the shortage of trained bilingual teachers. My second priority would be to promote professionalization avenues that leverage bilingual students’ abilities. In the US, Spanish is the most widely taught foreign language at the university level. At the same time, there is an immense need for increasing the bilingual workforce in all fields, particularly in Spanish, the language with the second-highest number of speakers in the world. This reality calls for a need to rethink the way we approach language teaching and increase our efforts to connect what students are learning to the demands of the current professional landscape.

I am a Senior Lecturer / Research Assistant Professor at Dartmouth College, where I arrived in 2016 to be the Language Program Director for the Department of Spanish and Portuguese. I teach language classes at all levels and an advanced class on bilingualism in the Spanish-speaking world. I also train and supervise our undergraduate teaching assistants. With my fellow LPDs in other language departments, we run the Language Pedagogy Group at the Leslie Center for the Humanities. The Language Pedagogy Group serves two main purposes: facilitating conversation about research-based practices, and to promote a sense of community among language teaching faculty, the majority of which is non-ladder positions. My academic interests include technology and accessibility in curriculum design, the integration of arts in language instruction, language advocacy, and the civic value of multilingualism. I have written on language education and multilingualism in the United States in The New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times, or Inside Higher Ed.

As candidate for Spanish Language Convener, my goal is to provide continuity with the work carried out by my predecessors and to work alongside other section heads. When I think about the next two years in our profession, two areas come to mind. On the one hand, we have pedagogical and programmatic conversations such as multiliteracies, critical and inclusive pedagogies; the role of LLMs in language teaching and learning; community engagement; enrollment, recruitment and retention of students; training and professional development of language faculty; or labor inequities in the profession. Alongside these conversations, I am very mindful that we are teaching Spanish at a moment where higher education is under attack, funding for language initiatives is disappearing, and language programs are on the chopping block (see the April 21, 2025 announcement at the University of Toledo eliminating the Spanish programs as well as several others). As convener, I hope to foster a sense of community to think together about how we teach what it means to teach Spanish at this particular moment.