We Are JUNE

Starting on January 1, 2011 our Associate Editor, Bill Grisham, will officially take over as the Editor-in-Chief of JUNE. We are fortunate to have Bill to take on this role, as he has a passion for neuroscience education and an impressive arsenal of skill sets that will serve JUNE extremely well as we move forward. Bill has an ambitious list of ideas for JUNE and he has a great deal of energy and enthusiasm to lead JUNE to new heights. We are starting his transition as Editor-in-Chief with the forthcoming issue of JUNE, as he will be handling all of the new submissions for this issue as of January 1st. I have been fortunate to have Bill as an Associate Editor and to have Barbara Lom as a Senior Editor during my tenure as Editor-in-Chief. Barbara was an outstanding Editor-in-Chief and has been an invaluable resource for me. I hope I can be of similar assistance to Bill, especially during his first year. Although I am saving most of my ‘thank-yous’ for the next issue, I want to encourage the many supporters of JUNE to continue to help make our journal a success. We have an outstanding editorial board and a wealth of dedicated faculty members who have devoted their time and expertise to submit manuscripts and to review articles for JUNE. Your continued support is desperately needed and very much appreciated. In the editorial of the past issue of JUNE, Bill made a plea for supporters of JUNE to volunteer their services to JUNE. The response has been terrific, as several of you have answered his call. One of Bill’s initiatives will be to delegate important roles for both the editorial board members and for this new dedicated group of volunteers. This is a very wise move on Bill’s part, as JUNE is continuing to grow, with a record number of submissions in the past two years. However as JUNE grows, so does the workload. Having a larger group of volunteers will make things go much more smoothly in the long run. There are a lot of ways in which JUNE can have an even larger impact in the future, and I am confident that Bill has the ability to lead us in this direction. However, there is one endearing quality of JUNE that I hope will never be lost. This, simply put, is the collegiality demonstrated by the reviewers of JUNE. I think this was fostered by Barbara Lom when she was Editor-in-Chief at the very inception of JUNE, and I hope this trait will always be a part of our flagship journal. The wonderfully helpful comments that have been provided by the reviewers for JUNE have been inspiring. Since most of us have experienced less-than-helpful comments by reviewers in other contexts, the extra effort given by JUNE reviewers is very gratifying. Most of our reviewers are also gifted teachers and they ply their expertise in this regard when reviewing manuscripts. Most suggestions to the authors have not only been tactful and very constructive, but many times, they have clearly elevated the quality of the manuscript. Rather than taking on the role of “gotcha” gate-keepers, most of the reviewers in JUNE have taken extra time to provide insightful comments and ideas that greatly improve the manuscript. There are examples of “award-winning” articles in JUNE that may never have seen the light of day without the helpful and insightful comments provided by our reviewers. Trying to publish a manuscript or obtain a grant can often give faculty members a feeling that they are struggling in a very cut-throat, competitive environment. In this respect, it has been heartwarming to witness the collegiality that our JUNE reviewers have shown throughout the years. Fortunately, pressures, such as a reliance on rejection rates as a measure of journal quality, that have spawned a less-than-helpful approach by reviewers of some other journals, have been supplanted by more positive measures, such as number of times an article has been cited. Nonetheless, some reviewers still function with the mindset that by actively restricting acceptance rates through emphasizing their roles as ‘gatekeeper’ rather than ‘facilitator’, they are protecting the prestige of the journal. I hope we can withstand this type of mindset, and continue to provide constructive instruction to those who submit to JUNE. I am not advocating that we need to accept every manuscript that we receive. I am simply saying there is value in salvaging useful manuscripts when possible. I think most of us have gleaned valuable ideas and insights from articles in JUNE which may have been rejected had it not been for the extra efforts provided by reviewers who helped the authors dramatically improve their submissions. JUNE was founded as the flagship journal of the Faculty for Undergraduate Neuroscience, an organization that has become well known for its collegiality amongst those who have a passion for teaching neuroscience to undergraduates, and especially for its mentorship of junior faculty members. This spirit has permeated the pages of JUNE over the years. If there is one endearing quality of JUNE that I would like to see retained forever—it is the spirit of mentorship our reviewers continually have provided to the authors. JUNE is a wonderful journal, only because it is the product of the wonderful people who support it. I encourage all of you to continue to support JUNE with the very spirit that brought it into being. Simply put, “we are JUNE.”