I’m Elaine Reynolds, the new editor-in-chief for JUNE. This fall issue is my first in this position and I hope you enjoy it and find it useful for your teaching and professional development. I have been a scientist for my whole life and a professor at Lafayette College for the last 25 years. The Faculty for Undergraduate Neuroscience are my tribe. The organization and its members have nurtured and supported me for all my teaching career. I am happy to give back to this community with my editorship.
As I am here for the first time in a while at SfN and FUN sponsored events, I am reminded how important and vital this community is and how, despite the challenges of the last few years, we have continued to thrive and grow. I am so pleased to see old friends and newer colleagues. I am also lucky to meet up with former students whose success has far exceeded my own. The FUN community all hold the same values dear: the mentorship of undergraduate neuroscientists through teaching and research, and the support of each other as we carry out this mission. This SfN meeting has been a success for our community as it seems that we maintained the momentum of previous years and continue to have leadership in the community who make this magic happen.
JUNE is an essential part of this mission. I hope you will consider joining the JUNE family either by submitting a manuscript, reviewing papers for us, or considering a leadership position with the editorial board. Don’t hesitate to reach out to me with ideas or your support for our mission. I want to thank all the editorial board members and the many reviewers for the journal for their support. We are a volunteer organization with only 1 part-time staff member and people have given much thought and time to this endeavor.
This issue continues to provide resources to the community. Several articles address classroom or teaching innovations, including a review of an SfN professional development session on teach neuroanatomy and an article on creating 3D brain cross sections (Casimo et al., 2022; Mesmer and Gaudier-Diaz, 2022; Minear et al., 2022; Ramos and Rivera-Rodriguez, 2022; Ritcher et al., 2022; Schoenfeld and Glenn, 2022). One paper discusses the role of scientific meetings in the undergraduate experience, another paper discusses an interdisciplinary minor program and another the incorporation of outreach into a major despite recent challenges (Carter et al., 2022; Franssen et al., 2022; Yu et al 2022). Finally, one article discusses the mismatch between graduate training and professional skills (Shah and Juavinett, 2022).
In the next year, we hope to make some changes to changes to the journal and its operation to make the submission and review process more streamlined and transparent. We hope to create article categories with clearer instructions to authors and reviewers. A FUN workshop is in the planning stages for summer 2023 and we hope to do a special issue to cover that meeting. I would like to ask people to think about creating literature reviews and histories that are useful to our community, particularly in areas of assessment and new grading practices. And your innovations in the classroom and laboratories will continue to be the strength of JUNE even as we deepen our practice of pedagogy. I am thinking that the new normal will be even better than the old normal. Stay tuned to JUNE!
REFERENCES
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