Volume 5, Spring 2008

Editors' Introduction
Jennifer M. Domagal-Goldman & Betty J. Harper

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This volume of Higher Education in Review marks the fifth anniversary of the Journal and presents an opportunity to celebrate its success. It also is an important time for the Journal’s Editorial Board to take stock – to consider where we have been and where we are headed. In 2007-08, the number of manuscripts submitted tripled with respect to the previous volume, and submitting authors were more diverse and represented a wider variety of institutions than ever before in our history. With this growth came the excitement of success and more than a few growing pains. Could we maintain our usually rapid turnaround time? Did we have enough reviewers with the breadth of expertise to provide thoughtful and formative reviews to authors? How could we involve the entire Editorial Board in all aspects of the publication process in order to maximize their learning experience and work to develop future editors? These are only a few of the questions with which we grappled.

One theme that surfaced repeatedly was quality. Enhancing the quality of the educational experience for Board members, reviewers, and authors, as well as the quality of the final product, permeated our discussions. To achieve the highest possible quality, every process related to the Journal was constantly evolving as our ongoing self-evaluation highlighted areas for improvement. As a result, we took steps to involve all journal staff, regardless of job title, in the entire publication process; we developed a streamlined, rapid-response editorial process; and we moved selection of the incoming editor to early in the spring semester in order to allow for a period of mentoring between the outgoing and incoming editors.

Ongoing projects for quality improvement include increasing the educational opportunities and resources available to reviewers so that they may provide a truly valuable critique to authors; creating a more informative, user-friendly, and interactive web presence for the Journal; evaluating the educational experience of the Journal’s authors, reviewers, and board members; and assessing the quality and utility of the Journal as perceived by its audience.

A particular focus, in light of HER’s growth, has been on increasing the quality of submissions. In this effort we encourage authors to review previous volumes to see examples of the type of work accepted for publication. We also call on faculty members to work with students to develop publication-quality manuscripts and to help students identifyexisting papers that may have publication potential. We look for submissions that include a clearly specified research question, present a theoretical or conceptual framework (when applicable), employ appropriate research methods, present a credible warrant for the importance of the issue, and contribute knowledge to the body of higher education literature. Four articles that demonstrate these characteristics comprise this volume.

In the opening article, “Politics of State Higher Education Funding,” David A. Tandberg explores the influence of political ideology and structure on state-level funding of higher education, using data from all 50 states over 24 years. The political variables add significant explanatory power to the funding model, building on our understanding of state funding processes.

Holly Holloway-Friesen, author of “The Invisible Immigrants: Revealing 1.5 Generation Latino Immigrants and Their Bicultural Identities,” offers insight into the lives of a little-studied group of students – those Latino/as who immigrated to the United States as children, establishing them as 1.5 Generation students who live between cultures. Level of bicultural competence, or the positive integration of both cultures, is presented as a framework for exploring the experience of these student participants.

In her critique, “The Spellings Commission on the Future of Higher Education: Global Competitiveness as a Motivation for Postsecondary Reform,” Casey E. George-Jackson considers the recommendations of the Commission from a historical perspective. Focusing on the language of competition and corporatization evident in a number of Commission documents, the author suggests an alternate perspective on educational globalization.

Jerry L. Tatum and Ralph Charlton, authors of “A Phenomenological Study of How Selected College Men Construct and Define Masculinity,” use a qualitative lens to explore male students’ construction of masculinity and its influences. The results, including the finding that definitions of masculinity were largely based on negative characteristics, have important implications for student development.

In the concluding essay, “Getting it Almost, Approximately, Just About Right,” Drs. Patrick T. Terenzini and Ernest T. Pascarella accept our invitation to reflect on their collaborative scholarly efforts and offer words of insight to future higher education scholars.

As an educational endeavor, Higher Education in Review reflects the type of collaboration described by Drs. Terenzini and Pascarella. The creation and continued evolution of the Journal is a result of collaboration at numerous levels – between and among co-authors, reviewers, editors, and Journal staff. It is about taking the intellectual risk of sharing ideas in print, leaving the security of isolation for scholarly exchange, in order to create something better. The collaborative nature of the Journal is also embodied in our co-editorship. Together we have found that we are better thinkers, writers, editors, and scholars when we work as a team. As we set ever higher standards for ourselves and for the Journal, collaboration helps us to reach our goals.

In closing, we wish to recognize the efforts of the entire HER staff, whose collaborative efforts are embodied in this volume. We also extend our gratitude to the Pennsylvania State University, the Center for the Study of Higher Education, the Higher Education Program, the Education Policy Studies Department, and the Higher Education Student Association for their support in this endeavor. We leave the Journal knowing that we are better scholars because of the experience and confident that HER will continue to improve with each successive, collaborative volume.

Jennifer M. Domagal-Goldman and Betty J. Harper
Co-Editors

Higher Education in Review is an independent, refereed journal published by
graduate students of the Higher Education Program at the Pennsylvania State University.

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