The upcoming academic year provides RTVJ with a new challenge. As you know, last spring the division was voted full-membership into the annual Southeast Colloquium. In March 2005, the colloquium will be hosted by the University of Georgia. The Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at UGA has established a web site <http://www.grady.uga.edu/southeast> with details about the 2005 colloquium, and this information will be updated regularly. I believe it is imperative that we make and maintain a strong presence at the colloquium. Please especially encourage your junior faculty and graduate students to consider the colloquium as an excellent way to get quality feedback on their research and to network with people from our division and the other groups involved in it. The 2005 colloquium is scheduled for March 3-5.

There are other issues that the membership needs to consider. Toward the end of September all dues paying members will receive a ballot and will be asked to vote on a series of items. Two of them include: becoming involved with a new peer-reviewed academic journal and increasing the financial support the division gives to the RTNDA liaison. Please be sure to pay attention to updates about these and other matters on the RTVJ listserv.

Denise Dowling, who is the new RTVJ vice-head and is in charge of programming, has provided a report in this newsletter about the submission of panels for the San Antonio conference. Officers are not the only people who can submit potential panel ideas. I mentioned at our members' meeting in Toronto that four people - Don Heider, Bill Davie, Bill Silcock, and Dale Cressman - who were not officers in 2004 submitted ideas that turned into panels. If there is something that you really believe ought to be discussed in San Antonio, then get that information to Denise by the October 4 deadline.

Many people deserve thanks for their contributions to our successes in Canada. The list of names is too lengthy to mention here, but suffice to say whether you were presenting a paper, appearing on a panel, or handling duties as an officer it was a job well done.

RTVJ was part of seven panels at the Toronto convention. Two were sole-sponsored and we co-sponsored five other panels that were scattered throughout the four-day convention. I heard many positive comments from convention attendees about our panelists and the ideas they presented.

RTVJ also had four paper sessions, covering a wide-range of topics and research methodologies. Elsewhere in this newsletter, Kim Piper-Aiken, who served as research chair, has prepared a report on our research activities. This year, Dale Cressman will serve as research chair. I want to encourage all our members to once again consider submitting their best research to our division.

I hope you share my enthusiasm for the great things I know we will accomplish as a division during the 2004-2005 academic year. If I can assist you in any way, please do not hesitate to contact me.