Editor's Notes

Welcome to the Journal of General Education, Volume 54, Issue 3. This issue contains articles from a variety of perspectives, including a national and theoretical focus, a faculty focus, and a student focus. These articles can help to broaden our perspective and our thinking about the subject of general education.

In this issue, we have one article that focuses on broad, overarching issues and theories connected to general education. In "A Discourse-Based Theory of Interdisciplinary Connections," Nowacek describes ethnographic research conducted in a team-taught interdisciplinary classroom, proposing a theory of interdisciplinary connections.

We have two pieces that focus on the faculty perspective. Creasman, in a book review titled "One Professor's Attempt to Transform His Teaching," reviews Dean A. McManus's recent book Leaving the Lectern: Cooperative Learning and the Critical First Days of Students Working in Groups, which is a personal account of one professor's transformation of his teaching practices. In an essay titled "Promoting Transfer of Learning: Connecting General Education Courses," Benander and Lightner describe their experiences with a faculty learning community focused on the issue of knowledge transfer from general education courses, identifying ways that faculty changed their teaching as a result of the experience.

Speaking of learning communities, in the first of two articles that focus on the student experience, "Reconsidering Learning Communities: Expanding the Discourse by Challenging the Discourse," Talburt and Boyles question the practice of freshman learning communities and consider critical questions regarding their value and practice. Finally, Hollway, in a research-based article titled "A Comparison of the Impact of Two Liberal Arts General Education Core Curricula on Student Humanitarian Values," investigates whether a supplementary curricular intervention changed students' values and presents interesting results.

I hope you will enjoy this issue and that in reading these important works, you will be inspired to make your own contributions to the Journal of General Education!