Dear Members of AANS,

It’s been an honor to serve this organization as its president for the past five years. At our recent member’s meeting in Chapel Hill at the ICNS 2025, I agreed to serve in this role until 2027. Recent changes in my employment, however, have led me to ask the board if I could transition out of this role now already, a year early. The AANS board has agreed, and Jesse Sadler, has been approved by the board and has stepped into the President’s role as of September 1. The AANS will be in very good hands under his leadership. 

As I step away from this work, I ask you to indulge me in a short reflection. I look back on the past five years of the AANS with gratitude and appreciate the excellent work that this organization, its members, and its member institutions have been doing. I think of the two Interdisciplinary Conferences of Netherlandic Studies that took place under the auspices of the AANS: In June of 2023 at the University of Wisconsin and in 2025 at the University of North Carolina. I am especially grateful for our colleagues there who gave countless hours of time and energy to organize these gatherings on the ground: Jolanda van der Wal-Taylor in Madison and Dan Thornton in Chapel Hill. 

Especially noteworthy has been the opportunity for the AANS to provide numerous scholarships to graduate students to attend the ICNS. Furthermore, our relationship with Dutch Crossings, a premier academic journal in our field, has allowed AANS members to regularly receive this quarterly publication as a perk of your membership in the organization. 

The cohort in the AANS of instructors of the Dutch language managed to gather for five docentendagen––workshops for professional development in our field. In 2022, they convened for two days at my home institution, Calvin University. In 2024, they met for two days in Chicago and thanks to AANS partnering with the Dutch diplomats in the U.S., were able to meet at the Dutch Consulate, using their conference space overlooking the blue waters of Lake Michigan. Besides these lengthier workshops, the AANS facilitated one-day docentendagen on the front end of the two above-mentioned ICNS gatherings. The focus of the past three workshops has been primarily the development of pedagogical material for Dutch which are geared primarily for the context of the learner in North America, especially for the learner at the intermediate level. This effort has been seen as a necessary given the general dearth of material for the small American market. With these instructors’ workshops, the AANS facilitates and invaluable service to its members and supports therein a significant contribution to the organization’s overall mission of promoting Netherlandic studies in North America. 

The above-mentioned conferences and workshops could not have taken place without the generous support of the Taalunie and the Koningin Wilhelmina Fonds. We are grateful for Karlijn Waterman and Ton van Kalmthout, respectively, the liaisons of these entities for their support and partnerships. 

During the past five years, we have lost dear members of the organization who have passed away: Esther Ham (Indiana University) in 2022, Ton Broos (University of Michigan) in 2023, and Rob Naborn (University of Pennsylvania) in 2026. These colleagues, each of whom were highly active members in the organization, will be dearly missed. 

There has also been good news of developments in our field. The University of Michigan Dutch program instituted a new Minor in 2023 that prioritizes the teaching of Surinamese Dutch. As part of this curricular development, a second full-time instructor of Dutch was secured, and the minor is thoroughly integrated in the longstanding Dutch language courses on the Ann Arbor Campus. Congratulations especially to Annemarie Toebosch and Denice Gravensteijn for this achievement. At my own institution, Calvin University, an interdisciplinary Dutch Studies Minor was approved and added to curricular options. Building on the existing elementary and intermediate language courses, students can achieve this minor by choose from a slate of English-language electives in Art History, History, and Biology––each which has a focus on topics and themes from the Low Countries. 

One last business item to conclude this message to you members. At the 2025 meeting of the AANS, those present approved the expansion of the board by one member. We welcome Esmée van der Hoeven (University of California at Berkeley). Esmée has jumped into her work here with both feet, as she will be the coordinator of the ICNS 2027, which is scheduled to be held at Berkeley. More details on that event will follow soon. 

Wishing the new president of the AANS, Jesse Sadler, and the entire organization het allerbeste! 

Herman De Vries

Former President AANS

September 2026