Abstract
We are delighted to take the reins of JME, sharing Editor-in-Chief duties, as a new way of engaging with authors, reviewers, and the entire scholarship of teaching and learning (SOTL) community. There were many reasons to say “yes” to stepping into the Editor-in-Chief role when the OBTS Board asked. JME is close to our hearts and has occupied a special place for us for many years. JME has helped us so often in our teaching and has been our default resource when we have looked to refresh our teaching practice. And JME has been our preferred outlet for our own pedagogy research as a result of both the marvelous review process and the fearless readership with whom we could converse about teaching and learning innovations. We simply could not resist the opportunity to serve the journal in this way.
While working with JME is a labor of love, we realize that challenges remain for SOTL moving forward due to a host of factors, not the least of which is the current measurement paradigm that uses citations as the dominant metric. Journal editorship gives us pause to consider opportunities for expanding the management education and development conversation and reframing how pedagogical scholarship is viewed. The issue of where and how pedagogical scholarship fits within the larger disciplinary scholarship mix still exists, and while it is not going away, external stakeholders are demanding metrics that are less esoteric than academic journal citations and more relevant to their needs—such as teaching innovations that positively affect student learning outcomes for a world that needs managers who can effectively navigate a high-velocity environment. In addition, external stakeholders are more loudly than ever asking for evidence of learning—the stuff of SOTL without the label. Institutions are caught in a tug of war between values systems old and new: There are enormous pressures on institutions to minimize the importance of teaching because research and grant-getting feed the resource stream, while at the same time there is enormous pressure on them to show teaching and learning value.
We view this time as ripe for innovation within SOTL in ways that honor external stakeholders’ legitimate concerns about teaching quality and the learning experience of the next generation in college and university settings. JME is well positioned within a galvanized set of SOTL colleagues who are helping fundamentally change how we view teaching and learning. First, AACSB standards about impact have substantially changed. New AACSB standards adopted in 2013 reflect the growing voice of the external community—Standard 1 now includes specific language about the impact of teaching and learning on crucial institutional stakeholders. Second, we have joined forces with editors from other SOTL journals (Journal of Marketing Education, Management Learning, and Academy of Management Learning & Education) to lobby AACSB for impact measurement tools that make sense for pedagogy. Third, our publisher SAGE is facilitating collaboration among some of its SOTL journals to create synergies among us, such as manuscript submission system integration and sharing article support services like podcasts and Editor’s Choice collections. We are excited about these and other initiatives in the service of continuing JME’s unique position in the journal world.
As we consider the journal’s future, our vision is to use technology to connect the traditional print format with our dynamic readership. Our organizing and strategic question is, “How can we help the journal come alive and support more interactivity among readers and the wider SOTL community?” To respond to that question, our strategic direction will continue the path first established by former JME editor Jane Schmidt-Wilk and the SAGE team: pursue multiple, synergistic avenues for enhancing JME’s reputation, expand JME’s international reach, and maintain JME’s exceptional editorial review process including our developmental approach to working with authors. The ways in which SOTL may be disseminated, discussed, celebrated, and ultimately utilized in our classrooms are infinitely more interesting and interactive than even 10 years ago. We collectively hold the keys to providing value in our teaching and learning scholarship when we are a vibrant community of teachers bravely walking that next line in teaching and learning innovation.
In this issue, we offer articles exploring affective aspects of complex teaching and learning interactions and how such aspects may enhance or alternatively degrade learning. Among the constructs authors have considered are certain student personalities, the physical learning space, social norms and pressures, emotive displays, and organizational crises. Examining how learning is affected by non-content-specific characteristics helps students practice navigating the volatility and ambiguity they will certainly encounter in organizational life. These articles also remind us to seek out learning opportunities we may not have otherwise considered—the silent sentinel of the classroom itself; the invisible scaffolding of social structures.
We look forward to engaging with you and welcome your insights, ideas, and suggestions in true JME spirit. We have created an editors’ email that comes to both of us, and we would love to hear from you at