Nicolas Witschi Elected Executive Secretary of WLA

After being a part of the organization for 21 years, Western Michigan University professor of English, Dr. Nicolas Witschi has been named executive secretary of the Western Literature Association. WLA has been a good place for Witschi for the last 20 years so he feels it's his turn to help the organization grow. His primary responsibilities are to serve as chair of WLA's executive committee, plan and lead the annual business meetings and anchor the organization in a way that is productive and supportive of the president. He will also help recruit the incoming president of WLA and work closely with the association's treasurer to focus on financial growth while thinking of new ways to consider how to build WLA. 

When asked why he has chosen to remain so closely connected to WLA, Witschi noted that WLA is a "remarkable, most useful, supportive, friendly group of colleagues. WLA allowed me to understand areas of my field that I didn't know existed and expanded my research." While this is Witschi's first time holding this particular leadership role, he has held other offices. Witschi has been on the editorial board of the WLA's flagship journal, Western American Literature since 2003. In that capacity he helped plan issues and was a reader for the articles and essays in his field (late 19th-century American West, especially genre Westerns, California literature and nature writing). In 2005, Witschi was elected co-vice president and in 2007, he became co-president where he took on the role of organizing the 2008 annual meeting. As executive secretary Witschi "would love to see WLA get on stronger financial footing, continue to grow international membership (including the possibility of having satellite international meetings), develop new visual representation and develop more growth in long-range planning." 

Founded in 1965, the Western Literature Association is a nonprofit, scholarly association that promotes the study of the diverse literature and cultures of the North American West, past and present.