I would imagine that like me, you are looking for-ward to the new year or at least to a time when we are not worried about a new COVID variant. Virus aside, there is much to celebrate. The Board of Directors has been especially active this year. It has created new awards in honor the late Rachel Feldhay Brenner and Anna M. Cienciala and, most re-cently, a prize to recognize gradu-ate student scholarship. It has also approved a resolution to “inter-nationalize” itself by creating space for the inclusion of future board members from outside of North America. The latter corre-sponds to a visible “international-ization” of the PIASA regular membership over the last several years. We are pleased by this development, as well as in the overall growth of our membership. We are also pleased with PIASA’s gen-eral financial health which has created funding opportu-nities not available to us in the past.
Moving forward, we will be sponsoring or co-sponsoring a series of online events, beginning with a conversation about identity in Gdańsk scheduled for Jan-uary 15. Please check our website for more information. We also remain optimistic about our planned internation-al congress in Białystok and will certainly keep you up-dated. We know that in the present climate all plans are tentative, but please pencil Białystok into those plans. How wonderful it would be to see each other again! With that hopeful thought in mind and on behalf of the Board of Directors, we wish you the very best for the New Year.

― Robert Blobaum, PIASA President