[The Montana Professor 23.1, Fall 2012 <http://mtprof.msun.edu>]
Philip Gaines, PhD
Associate Professor of Linguistics and Chair, Department of English
Montana State University-Bozeman
Montana Professor is a kind of hybrid publication. We call it a journal because the writing is done, in the main, by professors, and the subject matter is (at least quasi-) academic. At the same time, there are components—especially starting with this issue—that remind the reader more of something like the Chronicle of Higher Education. This mix is exactly what you would expect of a publication that treats matters of general interest and concern by and for the professoriate of a state higher ed system. It is an unusual—and sometimes challenging—publishing task but one that I believe serves the purpose of starting and continuing conversations across the institutional boundaries of our state. Spend some time with this issue, and see if you agree.
I've been at the editor's desk for almost a year now. A bit of background: I teach linguistics and rhetoric in the English department at Montana State University and currently serve as interim chair of the department. I am also the book review editor for the International Journal of Speech, Language, and the Law and a member of the executive board of the International Association of Forensic Linguists. When I was asked by a representative of the MP board in 2011 to consider taking on the editorship of the journal, I enthusiastically accepted the suggestion. The board concurred that it was a good match, and I immediately began planning the current issue.
In this work I follow in the footsteps of my predecessor, Linda Gillison of UM. Our readership owes Linda many thanks for upholding the 20-year editorial tradition established by founding editor George Madden. Special appreciation is also due to Richard Walton, retired in 2008 from UM, who has served as editor in the past and generously stepped in as interim editor to assist Linda during an important professional transition. Both Linda and Dick have enjoyed the support and advice of associate editor Henry Gonshak and assistant editors Alan Weltzien, Steve Lockwood, Marvin Lansverk, and Keith Edgerton—something I intend to do as well. I have been helped immensely for the past two semesters by my able intern and Assistant to the Editor, Emily Jo Schwaller, a student in the English Writing Option at MSU. Finally, the creative design and layout genius of Kristen Drumheller of MSU Communications is plain to see in these pages.
Montana Professor is fully funded by the offices of the President and Provost at the University of Montana and Montana State University. My sincere thanks go to Royce Engstrom and Perry Brown (UM) and Waded Cruzado and Martha Potvin (MSU) for their enthusiastic support of the journal.
In this issue, you will see several features new to MP. Let me talk about them. Critical Issues in Higher Ed is a forum for substantive contributions dealing with matters of importance and interest to the professoriate. For our first installment, George Dennison offers a wide-ranging discussion of the importance of the federal student loan program. (Be advised, by the way, that the article is considerable longer than our standard maximum, but the piece is so densely-packed with worthwhile content that I couldn't bear to make the author slash any more.) Perspectives offers a pair of alternative views—this time by Alan Weltzien and Doug Downs on outcomes-based assessment—on issues that deserve the attention of Montana's higher ed faculty. The objective here is for the discussions to be nuanced and reasonable rather than reductionist and polemical. We begin our first installment of The MP Interview with questions for Clayton Christian, Montana's new commissioner of higher education; I think you'll find his answers interesting. In every issue, we will feature an example or three of Current Research being conducted by faculty in the university system—research with a Montana connection and presented in a register that will be accessible to the entire readership; in this issue, you'll get spun up on studies of the impacts of traffic in national parks (Wayne Freimund) and non-native species introduction in Flathead Lake (Bonnie Ellis).
Complementing research summary will be a Focus on Teaching. Here, the emphasis will be on insights and ideas about effectiveness in instruction. In this issue, Greg Young and David Bartholomew reflect on how fine arts professors can include in their coursework strategies for helping students prepare for substantive undergraduate research. Long overdue in these pages has been a regular Tribal College Report—a lacuna filled in this issue by Richard Littlebear's story of Chief Dull Knife College. Every issue of MP will feature one or two exciting New Programs from across the system; this time you'll read about the new Global Health minor at UM. Also featured will be a few New and Notable Books by MUS Authors that should be of interest to the MP readership. Finally, a valiant attempt will be made to give you accurate information about New Faculty Hires, Retirements, and late colleagues we recollect In Memory. As always, there will be two or three full Book Reviews. In this issue, Henry Gonshak reviews a book on legal issues in the gay, bisexual, lesbian, and transgender (LGBT) community—a growing constituency in the MUS—and Marvin Lansverk covers a new title dealing with (as he says) "the problems and potentialities of higher education in the United States."
You will note that this issue is quite UM-heavy—mainly because, as I was scrambling to assemble material for the new features, the pieces destined for the issue mercifully appeared...and just happened to be mostly from your UM colleagues. You'll find, reading subsequent issues, that this was an anomaly; my goal is for voices from the full range of our state higher education institutions to be represented.
With the many new features included in MP, I will be looking to you, the readers, to submit much of the material. Of course, it's hard to know whether the submission stream will be a trickle or a torrent. If the former, I will be taking a more active role in soliciting articles. If the latter, we will need to be selective; so, if you propose something or send something in, please understand that it might not be a good fit for MP at the time. A complete set of guidelines for submitting ideas and pieces to the journal is available at our website, mtprof.msun.edu. I'd like to suggest that you go there and take a look even if you don't have anything in the pipeline at the moment so you can get an idea of the kinds of content we're looking for. (For example, I would like to include in every issue a report on acts or deliberations of the Board of Regents and the Montana Legislature that have specific bearing on the concerns of the professoriate in our state; I need a volunteer who would be interested in doing that sort of research twice a year.) Also, if you would be interested in writing a book review, let me know; while the books will be chosen by our review editor, Marvin Lansverk, a pool of interested reviewers would be good to have. Something else we haven't featured in a long time is a letter-to-the-editor section, which we're calling Reader Response. My hope is that some of you will contribute letters that engage with and continue conversations started in MP. Finally, please notify me of new faculty hires, retirements, and passings as well as exciting new MUS programs and notable books from faculty.
I hope you find this issue of MP interesting and engaging. Please let me know how we can better serve the interests of you—the faculty and friends of higher ed in Montana.
[The Montana Professor 23.1, Fall 2012 <http://mtprof.msun.edu>]