Texas Papers in Foreign Language Education

A recent meeting with my old classmate Suresh Canagarajah brought back memories of my days at The University of Texas at Austin. After starting my doctoral studies at the University of Pennsylvania in Spring, 1986, I had transferred to UT at Austin in Fall, 1986. I enrolled at the Foreign Language Education Center (FLEC) and taught Freshman Writing at the English Department to support myself because FLEC had no financial aid.


FLEC had about 150 graduate students, at Masters and doctoral level. Only three full time staff members served this enormous student body. We went to other academic departments for coursework and to find members of our theses committees. Intellectually, FLEC was comatose. There was a student association, but it did little more than organize social events.


Being a foreign student, and not being Caucasian, I was a minority twice removed. Looking back, I realize that foreign students were expected to be seen and not heard, to quietly and obediently finish their degrees and go away. But, I was impatient. Teaching at the English Department and hobnobbing with the graduate students there, I saw how intellectually stimulating that department was. Something had to be done, so  I came up with the idea of a student journal.


I couldn't do this alone. So I gathered a group of friends, among them Suresh (a fellow Sri Lankan) and Lakshmi Gudipati, an Indian student who was my neighbor in Graduate Student Housing. I did not think that the leaders of the student association had the initiative to start a journal or the competence to run it, so I decided to form a Journal Committee. The first step was to find the money. Lynn Denton, who worked part-time for the Texas State Government, knew about fundraising and she and  I worked on a grant proposal. 

We met often in the Fall of 1987 and I worked the Committee members hard, leading one to stay away from meetings accusing me of being controlling. But, he came back. The student association mounted a virulent opposition to the Journal Committee, wanting the Committee to be part of the association. An open meeting was held, at which I was present, and various accusations were made against me. But I was stubborn and insisted on the Journal Committee's independence. The President of the student association was an old friend of FLEC's Director, so support from the professors became lukewarm.


I marvel at how daringly ambitious we were. Only I had any experience in academic publishing (and that too had been a book review), we knew little about word processing, none of us owned a personal computer, and were facing strong opposition from some classmates - the office bearers of the student association - and little if any support from our professors. What was I thinking?


On Lynn's advice, the funding proposal was sent to the RGK Foundation of Austin. We only asked for the first year's funding, and were overjoyed to receive $3,000 (a princely sum those days, especially to a group of students). We became doubly energized. I came up with a name for the journal. I wanted "Texas" and "Foreign Language Education" in the name and preferred not to make the journal intimidating to novice scholars (such as graduate students) who would be our authors and readers. So I inserted "Papers" into the title. The acronym, TPFLE, is awkward and I did not expect it to catch on, but it has.


We distributed a Call for Papers ("information for Contributors") and submissions trickled in. Lynn and I would co-edit the first two issues. We, mainly Suresh and I, reviewed the papers and got the authors to revise. We also included a book review. Taking turns, we used computer labs to word process the manuscripts. I did most of the work.  Expecting the Journal Committee to continue beyond our stay in Texas, I even wrote a constitution for the Committee.


Finally, the big day arrived. We scheduled a launch party and invited the authors of the first issue, classmates all of them, to attend. Suresh, who picked up the copies from the printer, told me that Professor John Bordie, the Director of FLEC, hugged him when he saw Suresh walk into FLEC with boxes filled with copies of the journal. (I had never seen Bordie hug anybody!). Most of our classmates turned-up to buy copies, duly autographed by the authors! (No one asked for my autograph!)


Later, Lynn and I visited the RGK Foundation with a few copies of the first issue. Mrs. Ronya Kozmetsky, a Director and the wife of the founder, seemed overjoyed to see the journal. She said that we had exceeded her expectations and that the copies would be displayed on the coffee table of the Foundation's reception area so that all visitors could admire them. 


I stayed on the Committee till the second issue in Fall, 1988. Suresh and Vicki Cobb co-edited Volume 2. As we graduated and moved on, Elizabeth Mitchell continued to edit and manage the journal for a few more years. Other, new students joined the Journal Committee and continued to bring issues out. Professors, too, began to publish in the journal and it began to attract submission from beyond UT at Austin. The journal has now gone online, and the Summer, 2011, issue could be seen at http://www.edb.utexas.edu/education/tpfle/


A student-run journal is quite challenging because the editors come and go, and they have no experience in the complex process of editing and publishing a journal, let alone publishing an article on their own. Without some form of supervision and encouragement from professors, continuation is hard to maintain. But, 23 years after it began, the journal is doing well.


In the end, I did receive some recognition for all my hard work. The student association of FLEC now conducts an annual conference, and, in 2006, I was a keynote speaker. Prof. Elaine Horwitz, who had been my academic advisor as well as a faculty member on the original Journal Committee, recalled my work glowingly when she introduced me.


What of the Journal Committee members? Lynn Denton, my co-editor, became a Pro-Vice Chancellor of Texas Tech University, and now works for an NGO in Switzerland. Michael Baldzikowski teaches in Germany. Suresh Cangarajah became the editor of the best known journal in applied linguistics, TESOL Quarterly, and is now an endowed Professor at Pennsylvania State University. Victoria (Vicky) Cobb, now Westacott, is the Director of the Writing Center at Alfred University in upstate New York. Lakshmi Gudipati teaches at a Community College in Philadelphia. Elizabeth Mitchell is at ETS (Educational Testing Services) in New Jersey. I have not been able to trace David Edwards.


I spent three years on my doctoral studies at UT at Austin. In the first year, as the President of the Sri Lanka Students Association, I revived the Association, making links with the wider community, conducting numerous social and sporting events, keeping the peace between Sinhala and Tamil students, and raising funds to establish four scholarships for Sri Lankan students. In the second year, I worked on TPFLE. In the third and final year, I my completed my research, wrote the dissertation, and graduated. I was still taking courses in Summer, 1989, my last semester. And, all this time, I was teaching Freshmen English and  tutoring athletes to make a living. It was hard, but much harder on Fawzia and Roy.