The Highly Qualified Personnel Committee (HQPC) is pleased to announce the structure and organization for The Student Network. The next step is for The Student Network to finish forming its 10-member 2003 Student Network Executive Committee.

Alice Eriks-Brophy, Network researcher, University of Toronto, has accepted the position as HQPC Student Liaison to The Student Network. In this role, she will help implement the terms of reference and the organizational structure, along with facilitating the Student Network's growth and development.

The Annual Scientific Conference slated for Victoria, B.C., June 4-7, 2003, will mark the official launch of the 2003 Student Network. An election process is now underway to select the first five members of the Executive Committee. This Executive will work with Eriks-Brophy over the next two months to implement the organizational structure and will play a critical role to establish the electoral process involved in selecting the five remaining members. If you are interested in volunteering for the Executive Committee, please contact Eriks-Brophy, .

Any full-time or part-time student at any level of study, who is supervised by a Network researcher, is eligible for membership to the Executive Committee. The Executive Committee, after its start-up year, will have a two-year service mandate and each elected group of five will overlap with the second group of five by one year.

"Thus far, we have had great success with the program. With one of The Canadian Language and Literacy Research Network's objectives being to help foster the growth of a future generation of researchers dedicated to language and literacy, The Student Network is a critical part of developing The Network as a whole," said Eriks-Brophy.

"Students have enormous potential to contribute to The Network. The goal of The Student Network is to provide a mechanism to increase student involvement and input. It is set up in a way to let students have access to material that is directed toward them," she adds. "The Executive Committee is important and will help to form a more permanent structure for students to participate and communicate with Network researchers, and vice versa. The Executive and I will act as a link between the students and the researchers."

This announcement of the formation of the 2003 Student Network Executive Committee provides an excellent opportunity to say thank you to the founding students who participated in the 2002 Student Network activities, with special thanks to the visionary leaders, Nicole Conrad, Tracy Dow, Martha Anne Roberts, and Christine Tsang.

For more information, contact Alice Eriks-Brophy at phone: (416) 946-8633 Fax: (416) 978-1596 or Email: