Innovative Higher Education, Vol. 16, No. 4, Summer 1992

EDITOR'S PAGE

Innovative Higher Education is Finding Its Niche in Higher Education Ronald D. Simpson

With this issue ends the third year of the current editorship. With strong support from an outstanding editorial board, my institution, and the publisher, Innovative Higher Education has moved forward. The Board has enlarged and contains a diversity of superior people from across the country. The publisher agreed during the past year to increase the number of issues from two to four per year. The number of submissions during this year is up three-fold. Feedback is good as readers say that they like the fresh, straightforward style of the scholarly articles that appear. It has been nice to see this journal continue to grow and move to occupy a niche in higher education that can become unique. With growth comes adjustments and one has been to balance page lengths per issue with the total annual allotments made by the publisher. Some issues, therefore, have been longer and some shorter. We will get better at keeping this more even in the future. We also look forward to having some editions dedicated to special topics. We have had one on faculty renewal and have another one coming on leadership. The people, of course, who contribute the most are those who write good material for the journal. With help from the Editorial Board it seems that the articles are getting better each year. With so much being written these days, it is a goal of this journal to say the most powerful things possible in as few words as possible. In order to keep the journal fresh and changing it is important to rotate members of the Editorial Board. The terms of five members of the Editorial Review Board recently expired: Roslyn Attinson, professor emeritus, College of Staten Island; Irene Casper, Temple University; James Lockard, Northern Illinois University; Reed Markham, California State Polytechnic University; and, Alvin White, Harvey Mudd College. Almost all of these outstanding individuals had served 249

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since the inception of the journal and each graciously agreed to rotate off the board. Ten new Editorial Review Board members have been added to the board: H. Prentice Baptiste, Jr., Professor and Chair of Educational Leadership and Cultural Studies, University of Houston; E. Grady Bogue, Professor of Educational Leadership, University of Tennessee, Knoxville; Susan Forman, Associate Provost, University of South Carolina; Walter Gmelch, Chair of the Department of Educational Administration & Supervision, Washington State University; Larry A. Harris, Executive Assistant to the President, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University; Robert Kraft, Director, Faculty Center for Instructional Excellence, Eastern Michigan University; Kathryn Moore, Chairperson, Educational Administration, College of Education, Michigan State University; Eugene Rice, Vice President/Dean of Faculty, Antioch College; Judith Strommer, Associate Professor, Department of Horticultural Science, University of Guelph, Ontario; and, Maryellen Weimer, Research Associate, Center for the Study of Higher Education, Pennsylvania State University. The mission of Innovative Higher Education has continued to change over the years. Today the journal stands as a broad source of information on theory and practice for innovation in higher education. As long as we can continue to publish well-conceived, well-written articles whose ideas stretch and challenge us to reach further and deeper, this journal will continue to emerge as a major voice of change in higher education. Though these are crucial times, it is important to remind ourselves that the United States is still the envy of the world in higher education. This makes our role even more critical.