A Guide to Professional Organizations for Teachers of Language and Literature in the UnitedStates and Canada by Adrienne Marie WardReview by: Maurice W. ConnerThe Modern Language Journal, Vol. 76, No. 3 (Autumn, 1992), p. 406Published by: Wiley on behalf of the National Federation of Modern Language Teachers AssociationsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/330176 .

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406 The Modern Language Journal 76 (1992)

The author points out that his publication is the result of a project at his own institution (Brigham Young University) in which a small research group set out to improve the general education program of the school. In the au- thor's words, the group's efforts "led us back again and again to faculty development and re- cruitment" (p. ix). As the project progressed, more than one hundred faculty members, pri- marily from the humanities and representing eight different colleges and universities, were interviewed. These discussions, together with follow-up research on more formalized and well-established faculty development programs, became the nucleus of ideas around which the volume was written.

As a departmental chairperson who regularly deals with the issues discussed by Jarvis, this reviewer has found Junior Faculty Development to be an excellent resource. The author's willing- ness to openly confront the challenges that young, tenure-track faculty members face early in their careers and to suggest how senior fac- ulty can provide critical support for them makes this work required reading for all serious academic administrators.

FRANK W. MEDLEY, JR. University of South Carolina

WARD, ADRIENNE MARIE. A Guide to Profes- sional Organizations for Teachers of Language and Literature in the United States and Canada. 2nd ed. New York: MLA, 1990. Pp. vi, 104. $15.00, paper.

This monograph complements other directo- ries available to the profession by providing in- formation on a variety of organizations related to language and literature, including some con- cerned with ethnicity, political issues, and tech- nology. As expected, it includes organizations allied with the Modern Language Association and those listed in the MLA Directory of Periodi- cals. It also includes humanities organizations in the American Council of Learned Societies. The result of a 1988 survey of professional or-

ganizations and societies, this guide includes in- formation supplied by 214 of them. It is divided into two sections: an alphabetical list of 133 as- sociations and a list of eighty-one societies, each devoted to a single author. The first section, the

main body of the book, lists each organization's name, acronym, address, year founded, size, and the name and phone number of the contact person. Each entry also includes a statement of the organization's purpose and information about its publications, meetings, prizes and fel- lowships, legislative efforts, and other activities. The second section provides the year founded, the name of a contact person, the address, and the size of each author society. Following the two listings is a checklist of 140 abbreviations of organizations which range from the imagina- tive, such as ACUTE (Association of Canadian University Teachers of English), SHOT (Soci- ety for the History of Technology), and WISP (Women in Scholarly Publishing) to the redun- dant, with ASA listed four times (standing for African Studies Association, American Society for Aesthetics, American Sociological Associa- tion and American Studies Association) and with AAS, ACA, ACL, APA, and CLA each standing for two organizations.

The book is interesting because it provides us with avenues for interdisciplinary contacts and because it indicates the wide range of groups available to us. Whether your interest is in in- dexing, geolinguistics, ethnography, or femi- nist pedagogy, you will find an organization of like-minded people. The societies range in size from thirty (The North American Marguerite Yourcenar Society) to 140,000 (American Asso- ciation of University Women); they were begun as early as 1812 (American Antiquarian Society) and as recently as 1989 (James Fenimore Coo- per and Ralph Waldo Emerson Societies). With so many special interest groups in the teaching profession, is it any wonder that we have such difficulty speaking with one voice?

Despite the diversity and number of organi- zations listed, the book is incomplete. For exam- ple, although Pacific Northwest Council of For- eign Languages is listed, its sister regional conferences are not. Parts of it are also out- dated, a common problem among books that provide information about organizations. Does it matter at this point when and where the 1990 convention of the Modern Language Associa- tion of America was held?

In spite of these drawbacks, the book is a use- ful reference tool. It should be in the libraries of language departments and in the personal collection of professionals who conduct inter- disciplinary research.

MAURICE W. CONNER University of Nebraska

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