I have a picture of my daughter on my desk taken when she was seven. It is joined by one taken this year, her seventeenth. Together they are a startling reminder of what can happen over a ten year period. Similarly, when I think about Viewpoints, the College’s Journal for Developmental and Collegiate Teaching, Learning and Assessment, as it approaches its tenth anniversary, I am struck by the changes I see both in the publication and the College.
Between 1996 and today, Viewpoints has undergone three distinct periods, the third of which, I believe, marks a change not only in the scope of the publication but in the tenor of the College.
Initally, Viewpoints was intended simply as an in-house affair specific to Developmental Education. It had a staff of two, myself and Barbara Spadaro, and was funded by the Division of Educational Support Services, where it continues to be housed. For those three years it served its purpose in a low key sort of way. In 1999, I received a letter from the National Association for Developmental Education noting that its Journal for Developmental Education had been in existence for sometime and requesting (actually, it was more a declaration that we surrender ) that we discontinue use of their trade name. And so surrender we did, though with an appropriate amount of restrained glee that the publication had somehow escaped the boundaries of Community College of Philadelphia.
And so the Community College of Philadelphia, JDE became Viewpoints in 1999. But something else changed also. Jay Howard’s meticulously maintained on-line archives show, as with many publications, that the early years were a matter of imploring friends to write and reprinting where permission could be obtained, which usually garnered us two or three submissions, more often than not just by our deadline. By the winter issue of 1999, however, while the good offices of friends were still necessary, the number of submissions for each issue was well beyond the two or three articles that made up the Journal to that date. Perhaps it was the jaunty new title thought up by Barbara, and maybe, too, the publication had been around long enough to be considered “established.” However, I believe right around that time the College began to undergo a subtle movement toward more public discussions of teaching and learning, and Viewpoints became a principal venue for that conversation.
In 1999 the scope of Viewpoints broadened dramatically as the publication became the Community College of Philadelphia Journal for Developmental and Collegiate Teaching, Learning & Assessment. This was certainly an unwieldy title, but so, too, was it clearly reflective of changes happening at the College as well as nationally. The Assessment Movement was well underway and “teaching/learning” had become a phrase that was slowly working its way into both faculty discussions and Viewpoints articles. Also, by this time, Jay Howard had not only archived the publication but taken us both national and international with the subscription service he developed. In addition, during this period Jay and Vince Castronuovo became Board members and added their considerable academic voices to how Viewpoints would be presented.
Today I know that I speak for Barbara Spadaro, Jay Howard and Vince Castronuovo when I say we are proud of the evolution of Viewpoints. We believe it has done the two things one hopes for in a publication: It has reflected the changing voice of the College and served, too, as a vehicle for that change. I remain confident, as always, that the academic voice of the faculty will remain strong and along with Barbara, Jay and Vince remain committed to maintaining Viewpoints as a place for that voice to be heard.
©Copyright 2006. Contact author for permission
Maintained by Jay Howard,Sept 2006