Editor's Note

Welcome to the Journal of General Education, Volume 57, Issue 2! In this issue, the authors consider a variety of topics related to general education, they use a variety of approaches to considering the concerns, and they provide readers with suggestions for future research and practice. This issue contains four articles that add to our understanding of the field of general education.

Given the national health and heath care crisis, Becker and colleagues' article provides an important perspective. In "Making Health Happen on Campus: A Review of a Required General Education Health Course," Becker and associates tackle the question of whether a general education heath course should be required and examine an existing course by way of example. The article not only draws our attention to the issue but also makes a persuasive argument for making health an important part of higher education.

Two articles in this issue investigate student perspectives that can inform those working in the area of general education. In "The Development of Political Awareness and Social Justice Citizenship Through Community-Based Learning in a First-Year General Education Seminar" by Schamber and Mahoney, the authors used mixed methods to investigate student attitudes of political awareness and citizenship. Focusing on liberal arts students, in "Epistemologies of the Sciences, Humanities, and Social Sciences: Liberal Arts Students' Perceptions" Marra and Palmer use a qualitative approach to investigate students' epistemological perspectives of studying the liberal arts, raising an important issue of domain-specific epistemology. Th is work validates their earlier study, and it raises the important question of whether and how the model applies to first- and second-year students studying in similar fields.

Finally, in "Investigating Differences Between Low- and High-Stakes Test Performance on a General Education Exam" by Cole and Osterlind, the authors investigated whether test consequences influenced test performance. The authors found significant differences among the testers. They raise critical issues about testing for institutions to consider.

I hope you will enjoy this issue and that in reading these works, you will be inspired to make your own contributions to the Journal of General Education! For guidelines for submitting articles, see those contained in this volume or visit the following URL:

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/journal_of_general_education/information/guidelines.html.