• The University last year set a fundraising goal for the naming of this Center at $175,000. The Kingsley H. Murphy Family Foundation has pledged $50,000 to naming the Center after the late Dr. Eoin McKiernan. The Center and McKiernan Family are extremely honored at this offer. The Center is seeking to first match Mr. Murphy's pledge by January 2007. To find out how you can help to honor "a patriarch of Irish studies in the United States who laid the ground for the explosion of interest in Irish arts in recent years" (Irish Times, 7/20/04) please e-mail Dr. Ihde at thomas.ihde@lehman.cuny.edu or phone 718-960-6776.
• The registrations for fall courses remain strong. Combined undergraduate and auditing sections number about 25 for Elementary Irish I and 11 for Elementary Irish III.
• The Center is developing a working relationship with National University of Ireland - Galway's Acadamh na hOllscolaíochta Gaeilge (Irish Language University Academy). We faciliated the first cohort of students this past summer for a four week immersion experience in Connemara. We are preparing for the second cohort for January 6-20, 2007.
• The Center recently launched a new website to share research and general information with parents raising their children with Irish at http://www.paistilegaeilge.com .
• The Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs is contributing 30,000 Euros (nearly $40,000) to the Center to promote the teaching of Irish at CUNY. Funds for year one have already been received. Work is underway to add eight new courses and two new certificate programs.
• The Center is in the process of sending chapters one through nine of the Colloquial Irish textbook for adults learning Irish to publishers. The final five chapters are promised for December 2006.
• The Center is currently editing Volume 11 of the Journal of Celtic Language Learning (2006). In 2005, NAACLT, the North American Association for Celtic Language Teachers picked the Center to co-publish their annual yearbook of scholarly research. Volume 10 (2005) can be purchased directly from the Center for $10.

• Center staff prepared and presented a multimedia presentation on the progress of the preservation and access project at the American Conference for Irish Studies 2006 national meeting in St. Louis.
• Center staff present a "featured book" in the on-line archives in honor of the 90th anniversary of the Easter Rising, The Unbroken Tradition by Nora Connolly (New York 1918) .
• The Center recently submited a grant proposal to the National Endowment for the Humanities to fund further preservation of Irish American publications.
• The Center has received donations of two major private collections in the past few months in addition to the work being done on Iona College's collection.

• A number of traditional Irish-American music events have been hosted at CUNY and two are currently being planned for the spring.

CUNYIIAS Advisory Board