On April 23rd of this year, at the initiative of the current group of editorial assistants(Elizabeth Grace Winkler, Llorenç Comajoan, and Donald F. Reindl), a symposium wasorganized on the Bloomington campus of Indiana University to celebrate the 20th anniversary ofSSLA's founding. Presentations on the past, present, and future state ofresearch on second language acquisition were presented by Editorial Board and AdvisoryCommittee members Susan Gass, John Schumann, Kathleen Bardovi-Harlig, and PatsyLightbown. It is noteworthy that this commemorative event, the creation of SSLA,would not have taken place without the direct intervention of another group of graduate students,the Indiana University Linguistics Club. Without the IULC producing and disseminating thefledgling publication that was SSLA in 1978, the journal would never have made itbeyond the drawing board. In this note prefacing the last issue of Volume 20, I would like tonarrate the conditions of SSLA's birth and comment on the journal'scontribution to second language acquisition research.