Farewell Address and Parting Comments

When I was a graduate student, my big dream was to be published in Research and Practice for Persons With Severe Disabilities (RPSD; formerly The Journal of The Association for the Severely Handicapped); serving as its editor was inconceivable to me at that time. Anyway, the rest is history, and it is time for me to end my role as editor and following tradition make some parting comments. Serving as an editor has been one of the most enjoyable and satisfying professional experiences I have had, and I have many individuals to thank for their support and assistance. First, let me thank all the associate editors who have served with me, most of whom for the long haul (7 years): Susan Copeland, Stacy Dymond, Diane Ferguson, Phil Ferguson, Carolyn Hughes, Rachel Janney, Donna Lehr, John McDonnell, Craig Michaels, Roberta Schnorr, Karrie Shogren, Marti Snell, Fred Spooner, and David Westling. Let me also thank my colleague Suzanne Young who served as our statistical consultant and my department head, Mary Alice Bruce, for all her support. Second, let me express my sincere appreciation to all the 60+ members of our editorial board. Without their great knowledge, insight, and commitment to TASH’s research mission, this journal would never have achieved its first tier status and professional reputation. Finally, I must express my thanks to my managing editor Eirin Grimes (how she put up with me over all these years continues to amaze me). Eirin is a counselor at the University of Wyoming and deals with many serious student problems each day, but she came to every one of our weekly meetings in the best cheer. Every meeting we had was enjoyable, despite all the problems we faced: switching to an electronic review system, delayed publication dates, missing reviews and galley proofs, change of publisher, and lack of accepted manuscripts, among others. My appreciation is heartfelt. I must also thank Barb Trader, the TASH Board of Directors, and the four presidents we had during my tenure as editor: Lyle Romer, Carol Quirk, David Westling, and Ralph Edwards for their support and encouragement. No doubt I made decisions and took actions they may not have agreed with, but I never felt their lack of support. I believe that the journal serves an important and valued function, and all these individuals helped to achieve this function. So what has happened with the journal in the last 7 years? Most notably in terms of operations, the journal has finally entered the “Digital Age.” All manuscripts now are electronically submitted and reviewed via Manuscript Central. This has allowed for a rapid and efficient review system. We also have changed publishers and RPSD is now being published by SAGE Publications. We look forward to SAGE’s commitment to better market and publicize the journal and to help achieve a greater readership, both nationally and internationally. Probably, the biggest and most desirable change—at least from my perspective—has been a threefold increase in manuscript submissions; this has resulted in an increase in associate editors from five to eight members. This increase is of course important because it provides us with a larger pool of potentially publishable articles; the bane of many RPSD editors has been to have a sufficient number of accepted articles to publish. But, more importantly, this increase provides evidence that the journal has regained its credibility in the research community—a status it had all but lost prior to my appointment, and that researchers now feel