CALICO’s current president, Jon Reinhardt, would like to update you on some things going on with CALICO right now. 

pdf version: President Letter Fall 2019 

November 6, 2019

Dear CALICO members,

With most of us at least halfway through our Fall semesters, this letter is a bit later than usual, but better late than never.

We were all very saddened a few weeks ago to learn of the passing of Dr. Robert Fischer, the Executive Director of CALICO from 1997 to 2011. Bob’s legacy as a key player in the early years of CALL and his gift to us of this organization is something for which we will all be forever grateful. In 2013, CALICO members put together a Festschrift for Bob, which I recommend looking through for a first or second time to understand the role he played in our organization’s survival starting in 1997 (https://journals.equinoxpub.com/CALICO/issue/view/1919). We have also recently learned that Texas State has set up a scholarship in his honor for French students – more info on how to make a contribution will be forthcoming. There is no question that the decisions Bob made then led CALICO to where it is today, one of the world’s leading academic CALL organizations. May we all find inspiration and encouragement in the legacy of his leadership. We will have a tribute to Bob next Spring at CALICO 2020 in Seattle as well as in CALICO Journal.

Plans for CALICO 2020 are coming along. It will be an exciting conference, in a city that is a global center of technological innovation. The theme of the conference is ‘Global Realities’, a phrase reflecting the challenges and opportunities CALL faces in responding both to new technological developments like augmented, mixed, and virtual reality, as well as to a world where language learning is increasingly happening in informal, technology-mediated contexts. While the call for proposals is closed, we are planning a variety of events for conference goers that live up to our reputation as a conference that is educational, accessible, and enjoyable for students, newcomers, and seasoned CALL professionals and academics. If you have colleagues in schools, universities and community colleges in the area, encourage them to attend and tell their students. We have a number of grants for students to attend.

While I’ll share more about conference specifics in the Spring newsletter, if you are the type who starts planning early, please do consider staying at the conference hotel, the Renaissance Seattle (a Marriott hotel). As we did last year, we have a certain number of rooms we have to fill, so we ask that conference goers stay there if it is at all possible.  Closer to the conference, we will make possible to find a roommate so you can share the cost of a hotel room if you wish to do so.

CALICO will be well-represented at ACTFL 2019, this November 22-24 in Washington, DC. For those of you who will be attending, we are in the process of putting together a list of presentations that will be delivered by CALICO members at ACTFL, so we can learn from and support each other. Check your email in the next week or so for that information, and mark your calendars accordingly. (If you are presenting and haven’t already shared your information and would like to, please provide your information by Friday, November 8 here: https://forms.gle/JhpWtGqSfL4V1Gbb6 )

Also, if you’ll be at ACTFL, please mark your calendars for a CALICO meeting on Friday 11/22, at 5pm in the Marriott Marquis DC Cherry Blossom Room – this is a time slot we are granted by virtue of being “Organizational Members” of ACTFL. Please plan on attending this session if you can, and – most importantly –

bring a friend who isn’t a member of CALICO! We are trying to increase awareness of CALICO among ACTFL-goers, and we all know that technology is a popular topic at ACTFL. (In fact, there are 344 sessions that have been tagged with the “Innovative Use of Technology” keyword, not to mention some 75+ sessions that have the word “technology” in their title!). So this is a great opportunity to make sure folks are aware of our organization. The meeting will consist of a short introduction to CALICO, with a trivia quiz (and prizes!), and we will go from there to an impromptu happy hour in High Velocity bar, in the same hotel.

In other developments, we are working on coming up with new means of increasing CALICO membership, including offering new services and products that are exclusive benefits for CALICO members. We think there is space for us to build on our reputation and experience as an organization that does an excellent job at academic professionalization and networking, especially for graduate students and scholars building their careers. As experts in CALL, our membership has much to share with each other, including mentorship and both scholarly and practical knowledge. Some of the ideas for new membership benefits include an additional book series, issue briefs, a shared syllabus/materials bank, a mentorship program, virtual class visits, and consulting services. To raise the organization’s profile and boost membership, we’re thinking of developing and offering conference plenary videos, video-based app reviews, and podcasts and videos on popular CALL topics as freely available. If any of these ideas speak to you and you’d like to be involved in their development, please contact me directly. As with any volunteer organization, long term success of any new service or product depends on the commitment, time, and energy of devoted members.

If you’d like to nominate yourself or someone else for incoming Vice-President (to eventually become President and then Past President), or to serve on the Executive Board, please do. More information is available at our website : https://calico.org/call-for-nominations/.

Finally, if you’re on social media, please like and follow CALICO’s Facebook page, and join the group pages for the Special Interest Groups. They’re all pretty active, and some also offer regular newsletters. It’s a great way to get involved, network, and contribute to what makes CALICO the best professional organization around.

Have an excellent ending to the semester and year.

Best, 

– Jon Reinhardt

Nomination period open for electing new executive board members and vice president.

The deadline for submitting nominations for either position is December 6th. Please send all nominations to Esther Horn at ec06@txstate.edu. We will be electing two new board positions and one vice president. 

Guidelines for Executive Board nominations: 

* Nominee must be nominated by a CALICO member, including self-nomination.

* Nominee must have been a member of CALICO at least two years (consecutive years not required).

* Nominee should submit a 100-word biographical sketch and 300-word professional statement to be used on the ballot during the election.

* Nominee must agree to attend all executive board meetings taking place during his/her active three-year term, which begins the last day of the annual conference following his/her election to office.

Vice President nominations:

The Vice President, when elected, will serve a 3-year term: Vice President, President, and Past President.

The qualifications and procedures for Vice Presidential candidates include:

* Candidates for Vice President must have been members of CALICO for at least the last two consecutive years before the year of nomination.

* Candidates must be nominated by a CALICO member, including self-nomination.

* At the time of nomination, nominees will submit a short biographical sketch of no more than 100 words and a professional statement of no more than 300 words to the CALICO office.

* Because the Vice President shall serve as a voting member on the Board for a period of three years, candidates must commit to working closely, for the subsequent three year period, with the CALICO Administrator, the staff, the other Voting Officers, and the Executive Board, to ensure the effective functioning of CALICO on a day to day basis. Candidates must plan to attend all board meetings and annual conferences. Although the newly elected Vice President’s term of office does not officially begin until the day before the end of the subsequent annual conference, the newly elected Vice President is encouraged to attend the board meetings in the year of election. 

For an overview of duties/responsibilities of these positions, please see this page online.  Please get in touch if you should have any questions.