John DeFrancis, Emeritus Professor of Chinese at the University of Hawaii, was awarded (in absentia) the inaugural Walton Award for his outstanding contributions to the field of Chinese language pedagogy, on November 21, at the CLTA conference in Chicago. Since Prof. DeFrancis was unable to attend the ceremony in person, his colleague Cyndy Ning accepted the award, an inscribed hardwood plaque, on his behalf, and played a videotaped message from him. The speech is being transcribed and will be included in the March issue of the CLTA Newsletter. Prof. DeFrancis’ acceptance letter is reproduced below.

Miao-fen Tseng, University of Illinois at Urbana, presented an excellent paper titled "Invitations in American English and Mandarin Chinese: Implications for Teaching" at this year’s CLTA meeting, and was chosen to be the first awardee from the Walton Travel Fund. These awards are open to teachers at the pre-collegiate level and graduate students in Chinese language pedagogy.

Hong Gang Jin, Associate Professor of Chinese at Hamilton College, has been named the Outstanding Baccalaureate College Professor of the Year for 1998 by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education.