The Review of Higher Education

Dear Review of Higher Education Readers,

It is an honor to be the editors of the Review of Higher Education (RHE) and present our first issue. As RHE is the journal for the primary association of the field, the Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE), we believe the journal should be the top higher education journal publishing the highest quality empirical, theoretically-grounded scholarship about the functioning and effects of higher education. It should publish and promote scholarship from varying disciplinary, conceptual, and methodological perspectives. The works published in its pages should challenge higher education scholars and practitioners as well as leaders and policymakers to think more deeply and to make appropriate, research-informed change now and in the future. RHE’s impact should be seen in spaces ranging from classrooms to boardrooms, research offices to presidents’ offices, conference sessions to the pages of scholarly and applied journals, government offices to hearing rooms, student organizations to research organizations, and the many spaces in between. This past year we have focused on reviewing manuscripts with this in mind as well as strengthening the journal in a number of ways, some of which we want to share with you.

We believe that RHE requires a strong editorial team guiding its processes and direction. We are thrilled to have exceptional associate editors and outstanding managing editors who joined us this past year. Having a strong team affords us the opportunity to dedicate more intentional efforts to communication strategies and increase the efficiency and impact of the journal. We also rely on a strong editorial board to ensure quality and develop the field by providing detailed, thoughtful manuscript reviews and feedback about RHE processes to the editorial team. To reach our goals, it is essential that the board represent the field’s diversity in terms of areas of expertise, academic background, methodological heterogeneity and identity. Over the coming years, the board’s membership will change in accordance with ASHE Bylaws, but its strength will remain or grow.

In addition to a strong editorial team, we are pleased to announce that we are collaborating with the RHE’s publisher, Johns Hopkins University Press, in order to make articles available online, complete with DOI numbers, well in advance of print publication, so authors and readers do not have to wait until articles are published in a printed issue before sharing this important work and increasing its impact. In addition, we created an @RHE_ASHE twitter account to foster communication as well as to keep you abreast of the important articles pushing our field forward.

RHE, including its editorial team and board, as well as its authors and reviewers have been affected by and responded to the tumultuous time we are living through. When COVID-19 hit, we automatically gave authors and reviewers more time to do their work. With the anti-Black violence and global protests, we used social media more regularly, including sharing race-related articles from RHE’s pages as well as from editorial board members, regardless of outlet. When DACA went before the US Supreme Court in June 2020, we shared relevant RHE articles and will continue to do the same as important issues of higher education hit the news cycle.

We look forward to working with you in the coming years as we seek to build on the strong history of RHE by publishing the best the field has to offer, including what you find in the pages of this, our first issue.

Sincerely,

Penny A. Pasque, PhD
Professor & Director
The Ohio State University
rhe@ashe.ws

Thomas F. Nelson Laird, PhD
Professor & Director
Indiana University
rhe@ashe.ws