A Special Time for JUNE.

The highly successful workshop at Macalester College in July of 2009, which was jointly sponsored by Project Kaleidoscope and the Faculty for Undergraduate Neuroscience (FUN), represents a demonstrable testament to the profound impact that FUN, and its flagship journal are having on undergraduate neuroscience education. It is extremely rewarding to many of us FUN charter members to see the genuine enthusiasm and selfless support of the younger FUN members. During the early years of FUN, there was legitimate concern as to whether or not our organization would “grow legs” and inspire the involvement of a new generation of faculty members who would take the reins of leadership of our fledging organization. Last year’s Macalester workshop certainly dispelled any remaining concerns about the future of FUN. It is so gratifying to observe younger faculty members passionately taking up the FUN banner and providing “new blood” into our beloved organization. Without a doubt, FUN has grown its “legs” and is off running toward a very bright future. In a similar vein, the future of JUNE looks exceptionally bright. We have a wide and enthusiastic readership and are gaining a strong reputation for innovative ideas for undergraduate pedagogy in neuroscience. We no longer have to beat the bushes to encourage authors to submit manuscripts to JUNE, as we now have a backlog of manuscripts under review. Citations of JUNE articles are starting to appear in the ‘mainstream’ literature, and in many ways, JUNE has taken significant strides toward becoming part of the cadre of well-respected educational journals. The repertoire of new teaching ideas and materials, novel approaches for integrating technology in the lab and classroom, and the innovative laboratory exercises are part of the core attraction that is making JUNE an outstanding source for neuroscience education. The recent addition of JUNE as part of PsycINFO (the search engine of the American Psychological Association) is a testament that JUNE is maturing and has grown “a strong pair of legs.” Our road has not been without problems and a few detours (including weathering the ‘hacking’ hazards that many online journals face). Nonetheless, JUNE has emerged stronger and better over the past few years, as can be witnessed by the “double-issue” we are currently presenting. Not long after last summer’s Macalester workshop, Bruce Johnson approached me with the idea of setting up a special issue for JUNE that would incorporate the wonderful presentations that were made at the workshop. I concurred that this was a terrific idea, and Bruce, Eric Wiertelak, and Mary Harrington agreed to edit this special issue, which turned out to be a mammoth undertaking. The fruits of their efforts are spectacular. The response from the participants to publish their presentations in JUNE was overwhelming and the results of JUNE’s first special issue is now unveiled in the launching of our first “double-issue.” We chose to package the Spring (Volume 7, Issue 2) and Fall (Volume 8, Issue 1) editions together so that we could showcase them equally on our website for a longer time period. In addition, our new website has a feature that will allow us to post newly-accepted articles as “forthcoming,” prior to the launching of the Spring 2010 edition, so that readers will no longer have to wait for the launching of a new edition to access the most recent articles and learn about the latest exciting new ideas in neuroscience education. As such, we decided to delay the launching of the Spring issue and, in turn, launch the Fall issue early so that we could showcase them simultaneously. I would like to thank all of the authors who have contributed to both issues. I thank the authors of our Spring issue for their patience and the authors of the Fall edition, our Special Issue, for their timely contributions. A special thanks goes to Bruce Johnson, Eric Wiertelak, and Mary Harrington for the outstanding job they did putting together the Special Issue. I am especially grateful for the editorial assistance of Fern Duncan, whose extraordinary efforts this summer made this “double issue” possible. As always, the Editorial Board and I are deeply grateful to all the reviewers who donate their time and talents to ensure that each article is accurate, lucid, and of high quality. Finally, I would like to thank all of JUNE’s readers for your support and for making JUNE such a special journal.