Notes from the Executive Director: 1988 Convention

Notes from the Executive Director 1988 Convention Members of the RMMLA at the 1988 annual meeting in Las Cruces enjoyed warm weather and hospitality under clear New Mexico skies. The 307 registered participants attended sessions on a wide variety of topics and expressed appreciation for the diversity and the quality of the presentations. At the banquet and next day at the Plenary Session, Russell Jacoby suggested that the embedding of American intellectuals within colleges and universities has accelerated specialization and precluded them from speaking with authority to any but a limited number of other specialists. As a result, no one remains to address the public. Respondents Sally Kitch (Wichita State University) and Barry Sarchett (Incarnate Word College) remarked the need for plural points of view and inquired to whom we would address ourselves and in the service of what agenda when outside our teaching function. These issues generated lively interest now carried to a number of campuses. Arrangements for the convention went as smoothly as one can expect with an undertaking of this nature. Although Continental Airlines changed several of its flights after RMMLA confirmed arrangements with them, approximately 80 people made flight reservations through the Buck Rogers agency and were kept updated on changes in travel schedules in addition to receiving the best fares possible. We owe our thanks to Waldo Glock who served as local arrangements host and to Dean Thomas Gale of the College ofArts and Sciences who bravely undertook to provide financial and human resources for the meeting. Thanks also are due to the section chairs and presenters. RMMLA offers its best wishes to New Mexico State on the occasion ofits one hundredth anniversary. In 1989 the RMMLA will meet in Las Vegas at the Alexis Park Hotel, a non-gambling hotel with transportation to the Las Vegas strip. The University of Nevada, Las Vegas, our host, and MarieFrance Hilgar, the local arrangements chair, have considerable experience in giving conferences, and we look forward to a pleasant and productive meeting. The call for papers for the 1989 convention will be published in November as soon as all the section reports are received. Reserve October 19-21, 1989, for the RMMLA meeting. In its continuing effort to offer members an exciting program as well as a forum in which to test their ideas, the RMMLA Executive Board decided at the meeting of October 20 to prohibit the reading of "in absentia" papers at future meetings; to offer members the opportunity to volunteer a $2.00 payment (or larger donation) to support "Connections," the RMMLA Women's Caucus Newsletter; to drop lapsed sections in Other Germanic, Science Fiction, Small 179 Presses, and Research Methodologies in Latin American Literature; to provide time at the 1989 meeting for the presentation of a film in conjunction with the film sections; and to accept the request of the Twentieth Century Spanish Association ofAmerica to become an allied (conjoint) association. The Board also discussed several proposed special sections and affirmed its commitment to offering a substantive and diverse program by encouraging these proposals as well as discussing means of rejuvenating existing sections which have had reduced attendance . In this regard, section chairs are encouraged to supplement the call for papers with a separate flyer to departments or with independent recruitment of papers among area scholars. I encourage section chairs to contact me with ideas or queries. RMMLA-Huntington Award Applications Sought Professor Susan H. McLeod (Washington State University), VicePresident of RMMLA, will chair the committee which selects the recipient of the RMMLA-Huntington Award for 1989. All members of the RMMLA are eligible to apply for the award. The deadline for application for 1989 is January 2, 1989. Criteria for selection include value of the project, appropriateness of the research to material available at the Huntington, promise and experience of the researcher, and proposed use or distribution of the results. To apply, candidates should send five copies of a vita indicating prior research for publication; a description of the project to include an indication of work done and an estimated date of completion; and a letter of application describing what Huntington materials would be used, the approximate dates of residence at the Huntington...