PALE AGM held at the 2005 JALT National Conference

Report by Robert Aspinall, PALE Coordinator

PALE Program chair, Jonathan Britten organized three very successful events at this year’s JALT national conference held in Shizuoka “Granship” Convention Centre in October. Here I will discuss one of those events – the Annual General Meeting. I am pleased to say that the meeting was very well attended – standing room only!

The New List of Officers
One of the most important tasks of the AGM is to elect the SIG officers for the forthcoming year. I am very happy to report that a full list of officers was elected.

Coordinator: Robert Aspinall
Treasurer: Barry Mateer [New]
Program Chair: Jonathan Britten [note: newsletter revision]
Membership Chair: Mark Cunningham
Publications Chair: Mike Plugh
Members-at-large: Jarret Ragan/Arudou Debito

Proposals for 2006
After a very productive discussion the following proposals were adopted.
PALE in cooperation with other JALT SIGs and the Standing Committee on Employment Practices (SCOEP) will work to draw up a list of draft guidelines and codes of practice relating to professional standards in the workplace. It will promote the earned tenure system for universities and other institutions which should be applied regardless of nationality, ethnicity or gender.

PALE will also continue to research and campaign on other key employment related issues such as the growth of outsourcing in universities, board of education and elsewhere, and the problem of abuse of class evaluation systems in order to intimidate or remove staff.