Tag Archives: journal editor

Ecological Restoration editor Steven Handel awarded LaGasse Medal

Steven Handel, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Ecology and Evolution, and editor of Ecological Restoration was recently awarded the LaGasse medal by the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA). This award “Recognizes notable contributions by individuals to the management and conservancy of natural resources and/or public landscapes.”

The LaGasse Medal is the highest honor the ASLA can award to a non-landscape architect professional. It represents the significant achievements Dr. Handel has made in nearly 40 years working in this field. With this award, Handel joins esteemed recipients including former Secretaries of the Interior Sally Jewell, and Bruce Babbitt. Handel’s medal will be given to him this Fall at the ASLA annual meeting.

The University of Wisconsin Press had the honor of interviewing Dr. Handel about his award. The transcription can be found below:

Congratulations on winning the prestigious LaGasse Medal! Can you tell me how you felt when you first learned about this recognition and what it means to you?

Steven Handel:
Well, I was called by the person who nominated me, and I was surprised, and I was really thrilled. It’s a national honor that only goes to one person in the United States each year, and I was just astonished. I worked very hard for a long time and most of the work of an academic is private. You know, you sit in your office, or in the field working and to realize that a huge professional organization gave me their highest honor for natural resources. I just was like a light went on in a dark room.

It was just wonderful and the people I work with, the landscape architects and so on were also just thrilled for me and said some very nice things. My son asked: “Is this the capstone of your career?” I said, well, I don’t know about that, but it certainly makes me feel that these last 20 years of work and designing public landscapes was appreciated, and I’m grateful for that.

The LaGasse Medal is awarded to individuals who have made significant contributions to the management and conservancy of natural resources and public landscapes. Could you elaborate on the contributions you were recognized for and what impact you believe these projects have had on the field as a whole?

Steven Handel:
That’s right. The nomination said I did 5 things that were worthy of this honor. One is I that I’ve managed the Rutgers Forest, which is an uncut primeval forest, one of the few left in the eastern US, and I helped save that from deer pressure and invasives, so formally helping a national natural landmark.

I’ve done writing, of course, for your journal Ecological Restoration, and also in the scientific literature on restoration, and bringing back natural biodiversity. I’ve done that for many years, many people read that, and I hope, respond to it.

A third, I’ve trained students, both undergraduate and graduate students, over 20 PhD’s and master students, over the years in restoration ecology. I’ve helped train the next generation, and I’ve lectured not only at Rutgers, but also at Harvard University in their Graduate School of Design, which is the biggest landscape architecture program in America. They invited me to give a required course to all their students. I did that for four years about using ecological principles in landscape design, and I hope that’s had an impression.

Finally, was helping to design public parks. I’ve worked with several leading landscape architecture companies to tweak or modify their designs to make them more ecological, more diverse, and more sustainable, and that’s been very interesting for me. Most of my life I worked with scientists, but here I was working with a very different profession of designers and landscape architects, so it’s a transdisciplinary collaboration. It’s so interesting to me that many of these people really listen to what I have to say and make their designs more biodiverse, and I hopefully more sustainable in a changing world.

What motivated you to pursue a career in the restoration of native plant communities and sustainability? Did you always have an interest in restoration work, or did your interest develop over time?

Steven Handel:
There was an actual moment where I decided I’d better look into this. I had spent about 20 years studying plant populations, how they spread, how they reproduce, pollination, seed dispersal and had a fine time.

That was sort of straight scientific population biology work, and one day I took my class out on a field trip and we went to an old landfill in New Jersey. It had been 25 years since they stopped dumping garbage there and at the top of the landfill were just a few weeds. Every textbook in biology says after 25 years of abandonment, you should get ecological succession. It should be perennial wildflowers and shrubs and young trees, and that did not happen on this landfill, and I said, why not? How is it possible to restore these 20 acres into a natural landscape? So I got a grant and we started doing some experiments there to find out why hadn’t it developed into a natural community.

That started this whole part of my career. We learned what some of the problems were and about four years later I got a call from a landscape architecture company. A big one. They said: “We’re doing a project and an old landfill. We heard you study landfills. Can you help us?” I started collaborating with them, and the next thing you know, I won the LaGasse Medal 20 years later.

Could you share some of the challenges or obstacles you encountered along your journey and how you overcame them?

Steven Handel:
Yes, so many people are interested in nature in the city greening American cities. But it’s hard, you know, cities are not Yellowstone National Park. They have many, many stresses and all those stresses have to be addressed using ecological scientific principles. Cities are hot because of traffic and buildings, and cities have fragmented landscapes, so each little bit of green land is surrounded by asphalt, not by other forests. Cities have a lot of invasive species, crummy soil because of past land uses, and each of these constraints has to be overcome to bring back biodiversity and healthy landscapes. Healthy for us, not just for birds and butterflies.

So we started learning what the constraints were, and what kinds of plants and what kind of protocols or processes to use. We had to bring back biodiversity, not what was there 400 years ago. Rather a biodiversity that could survive current stresses, in a climate which is changing rapidly, getting hotter and drier. So, it’s been very interesting as a study of applied ecology.

What are the problems? Well ecological links have to be used to address those problems, and you know, I have to work with landscape architects because they are the only ones with a license to do blueprints. I can’t do a blueprint, and also, they deal with all the other needs of a landscape: where people have to walk, where to put the restrooms, where to put the athletic fields, and I work on the spaces around that.

How can we make maximize ecological health? And my award is for trying to get landscape architects to do that, to add some ecological feature to every project they work on.

As a recipient of the LaGasse Medal, you join an esteemed group of individuals (including a former Secretary of the Interior) who have made significant contributions to the field. How does it feel to be recognized alongside such renowned figures?

Steven Handel:
A few of them even, including Bruce Babbitt, who was Secretary of the Interior for President Clinton. So, it’s amazing to read the list of names. Well, first I’ll say I think it’s an important recognition for my field more so than for me. The idea that ecology can play an important role in landscape design and that restoration ecology can partner with the design field. So, I think it’s a way of getting my field better seen, and I hope it will make more ecologists work with the design professions, architecture, and city planning.

For me personally, it just feels that people have appreciated all this hard work I’ve done. I once told your journal manager, Toni Gunnison, I work 50 to 60 hours a week, and I sometimes wonder if anybody even sees that. And so, I felt that it justified all that hard work after all these years.

The LaGasse Medal is a testament to your dedication and commitment to the restoration field. How do you envision the future of the field, and what are some of the emerging trends or challenges that you believe will shape it?

Steven Handel:
Well, that’s a good question. I think nationally people are finally getting to see the immediate impacts of climate change. I mean this horrible, polluted air that’s come down from the big forest fires in Canada, the rising sea levels at all of our coasts, the increased storms which are also part of climate change. People are desperate for solutions with these public problems. Restoration ecology and adding green solutions to the infrastructure are ways to help, so I’m hoping that people will see that ecological science is part of the solution for a healthier, more economically sustainable future for our country.

I completely agree. And the world?

Steven Handel:
One country at a time, my boy. Well, you know, just last week I got a call from a guy who’s a professor at Stockholm University in Sweden and he asked if I could come to Stockholm in September to help them in in a similar project. So, you know there is one international program that’s starting, and even the United Nations has gotten interested. They’re doing something now. They called this the Decade on Ecosystem Restoration and are trying to get other countries to realize adding back green solutions and natural solutions as part of protection. It’s for people, not just for butterflies and birds, and I stress that whenever I talk to a government group. By having healthy, sustainable infrastructure, it makes human health better, less asthma, less mental health stresses, and so on.

Lastly, what advice would you give to aspiring professionals in your field who hope to make similar significant contributions to the field?

Steven Handel:
Oh that’s good. I would say to my ecology colleagues and students: reach out to other disciplines. Science is fascinating, wonderful and makes great advances, but to make a better world, we have to reach out to other professions like landscape architects.

The old days of silos with each of us is in our own professional island, has to end, and the only way we’re really going to succeed to improve our country is for people with science backgrounds to work with public policy and the design communities. And they will welcome you.

One of my jobs at Harvard was to build links between biology and landscape architecture, and I think I succeeded a bit. Those kinds of academic and training links have to occur. I tell my ecology graduate students, get to know people in the design professions because you have so much to offer them.

And I think that is starting now nationally. I hope the LaGasse Medal is a recognition of that, and that we’ll get other landscape architects to think about working more closely with ecologists. There are some 15,000 members of the American Society of Landscape Architects and they all will get the news release about this medal and I hope it will make them think to reach out to a local university or ecology group to have them partner in new landscape designs.

Call for editor-in-chief, Native Plants Journal

Native Plants Journal (NPJ) has recently announced they are accepting applications for a new editor-in-chief. The journal, which was founded in 2000 as a collaborative effort between the USDA Forest Service and the University of Idaho, aims to provide a forum for practical information on planting and growing native North American plants for conservation, restoration, landscaping, and other related purposes.

The new editor-in-chief will have a range of responsibilities, including overseeing the editorial process; managing the peer review process; representing the journal at conferences and events; working with authors, reviewers, associate editors, and the managing editor to ensure timely and high-quality publication of articles; developing and implementing editorial policies; and collaborating with the University of Wisconsin Press to ensure efficient production and distribution of each issue.

To be considered for this role, candidates should have knowledge of the academic peer review process, experience in reviewing papers for academic journals, and hold an academic post in a relevant field such as ecology, botany, horticulture, conservation biology, or other plant-related field. Consideration will be given to those in relevant industries who have published papers and understand the value of sharing and expanding knowledge. Interested candidates must submit a CV that includes previous editorial experience in a relevant field, as well as a cover letter that outlines why they would be a good fit for the role and their vision for the future of the journal.

The deadline for applications is June 30th. More information can be found at https://npj.uwpress.org /call-for-editor

The position of editor-in-chief of NPJ presents a unique opportunity for individuals with relevant experience and a passion for the conservation and restoration of North American native plants. The selected candidate will have the chance to shape the future of the journal and make a significant contribution to the field.

Landscape Journal Welcomes New Editor James LaGro Jr.

UW Press is pleased to welcome James LaGro Jr. as the new editor of Landscape Journal: Design, Planning, and Management of the Land. LaGro began his editorial tenure in June of 2021, succeeding former interim editor Katherine Melcher.

James LaGro Jr. is a professor in the Department of Planning and Landscape Architecture at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He received his MLA and PhD from Cornell University, and he has also worked in private practice as a professional land planner. Prior to joining the faculty of UW–Madison, he served as a 2008-09 AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellow with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s National Center for Environmental Assessment – Global Change Research Program. His 2008 book, Site Analysis: A Contextual Approach to Sustainable Site Planning and Design, was selected by Planetizen as one of the top planning books of that year.

The following interview with LaGro was conducted by Jennifer Tse of the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture (CELA) and published on the CELA website, and we are republishing it here with their permission. In it, LaGro details some of his exciting plans for the future of the journal.

ARE THERE ANY SEMINAL MOMENTS IN YOUR EDUCATION OR PROFESSIONAL CAREER THAT INFLUENCED YOUR PATH?

Yes, I certainly have had moments where I knew it was time to close one chapter of my career and move on to the next.

For example, my undergraduate degree is in urban horticulture, so I studied plant ecology and plant physiology, and soils and pathology, and all the things that contribute to healthy plants. I started a business in my senior year—a landscape contracting and gardening business—but within about a year I became much more interested in the design and construction aspects. So that led me to go back to school for my Master’s in Landscape Architecture.

I then worked for five years in private practice. When I was in South Florida with EDSA, I began to see the connections between public policy and land use change and impacts on the environment. And that got me interested in going back to school yet again for my PhD in Natural Resources Policy and Planning with a focus on urbanizing landscapes. Each step was a progression up in scale, looking at increasingly bigger issues.

I have also had good mentors along the way—in universities and in private practice. They influenced my career path by helping me visualize what my next steps could be.

IT SEEMS LIKE YOU’RE COMING INTO THIS POSITION AT THE PERFECT TIME.

I hope so. My experiences as a researcher, educator, and practitioner all help to broaden my perspective on land planning, design, policy, and management. I’ve planted trees and built patios with my own hands. But I’ve also worked on teams that planned new communities on sites as large as 5,000 acres.

AND YOU ALSO WORKED IN SWITZERLAND.

Yes, I did. I learned a lot about green roofs in Switzerland. The Swiss are fantastic in horticulture and in using space very efficiently. So that was fun because I spent time up on rooftops—sometimes five, six, eight stories up, overseeing the construction and planting. Because it was a design-build firm, I would be in the field about half of the time, supervising crews that were always international. These skilled workers came from several European countries.

WHAT INTERESTED YOU IN BECOMING EDITOR-IN-CHIEF OF LANDSCAPE JOURNAL?

One of the reasons is that I love to write. I am continuously trying to improve my craft. I enjoy the writing process. I enjoy editing. And I enjoy helping other people write well. I often review graduate student writing, but I also peer-review journal and book manuscripts. So, this opportunity really appealed to me—a leadership position focusing on writing for publication. Frankly, I was impressed by the position description because it was clear to me that there had been considerable thought given to where the journal has been, where the journal is currently, and where it could go in the future. That came through very clearly. I was impressed by the level of analysis, but also by the visionary aspect—that the task force envisioned a new model for editorial oversight and leadership. It was also clear that this wasn’t just a caretaker role, but an opportunity to provide innovative leadership. So that attracted me very much.

AS EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, ARE THERE ANY TYPES OF SCHOLARSHIP, GENRES, OR TOPICS THAT YOU ARE MOST INTERESTED IN EXPANDING OR EMPHASIZING IN THE FUTURE?

Yes, definitely. I would like to encourage scholarship from a broad range of authors. Original research articles, obviously. Those are the mainstays of an academic journal. But I also would like to find ways to encourage review papers that synthesize the literature and articulate the state-of-the-art on important issues for the profession and discipline. Different practice types, educational pedagogies, and research methods could be examined. I would also like to encourage reflective and speculative essays, to encourage more practitioners to write for Landscape Journal.

I also think there’s a role for advocacy scholarship in landscape architecture. Public policy plays a huge role in shaping the built and the natural environment. So, public policy briefs that are evidence-based and analytical could be published in the journal. These policy briefs might look at two or three policy scenarios: compare the pros and cons, and then make recommendations for policy reforms. These could focus on federal, state, or local-level policies. Landscape architecture, as a profession, could play a more assertive role in public policy conversations in this country and across the world.

HAVE YOU SEEN A LOT OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTS ADVOCATING FOR THIS AS WELL?

The New Landscape Declaration addresses this issue and that’s one of the reasons why I’m excited to serve as Editor-in-Chief. So, I do think some of the aspirational aspects of what the LAF (Landscape Architecture Foundation) and the Landscape Declaration are saying are outcomes that I can help bring to fruition.

We also can learn from critiques of built works—projects that have been implemented. LAF’s landscape performance case studies, for example, assess the social, economic, and environmental benefits of selected built projects. These increase our collective knowledge base. And in the best traditions of design criticism (I’m thinking, here, of Ada Louise Huxtable), critiques of built works could offer interesting new perspectives and insights.

IS THAT AN AREA WHERE PRACTITIONERS WOULD COME IN?

They absolutely could. This is an area where both practitioners and educators can contribute—including students.

WHY DO YOU THINK THAT PRACTITIONERS HAVE BEEN LESS REPRESENTED IN THE JOURNAL?

I think it has to do with the traditional expectations for publishable scholarship. And this is one area where I can help. I plan to reach out to practitioners in the field and invite them to reflect upon and write from their experience. These would not be 8,000-word articles reporting on scientific research. But shorter pieces—1,000 or 1,500 words—reflective essays that encapsulate the views and insights that they’ve developed through practice. This scholarship can have benefits not only for students, but for academics who are teaching the next generation of practitioners. I’m hoping this is a mutually beneficial dialogue that helps to shape the field’s future research agenda.

DO YOU SEE THEM AS PLAYING A SPECIAL ROLE WHEN IT COMES TO PUBLIC POLICY DISCUSSIONS?

Practitioners confront public policies in terms of regulatory requirements and ensuring that their projects meet local permitting and approval standards. Practitioners also have an interest in understanding the performance of implemented projects. Research collaborations—between academics and practitioners—could generate useful new knowledge. That kind of information can be good for business and also influential in shaping policy reforms.

Ideally, we will have authors from the research community and the practitioner community writing from their experiences in different contexts. I’m interested in the perspectives of practitioners working in the private sector, but also in the public and non-profit sectors. This is an under-tapped resource. In the city of Madison, the community where I live, there are landscape architects who are or have been in influential positions within local government. They have a story to tell, too, that I think would be interesting and useful.

DO YOU THINK THAT THE GREATER PUBLIC WOULD BENEFIT FROM HEARING FROM PEOPLE SUCH AS YOURSELF AND THESE PRACTITIONERS?

Absolutely. I often tell my students that, as future professionals, they will have a responsibility to be civically engaged. When opportunities arise to serve on committees or advisory boards, they should take them because they have a unique lens for looking at community issues. They can contribute to the greater good if they use their knowledge and values to weigh in on local policy decisions.

IS THERE ANYTHING ELSE THAT YOU WOULD LIKE TO SHARE WITH THE MEMBERS OF CELA?

I’m excited about this new role. The plan is to increase the annual number of Landscape Journal’s issues from two to four. This will happen incrementally. So, all these changes will increase opportunities for publishing scholarship from CELA members, from practitioners, and from other disciplines. More information on the journal’s revised aims and scope and author guidelines will be forthcoming.

WHAT IS YOUR OVERALL GOAL FOR YOUR EDITORSHIP?

Increasing Landscape Journal’s impact factor is a key goal. As an international outlet for scholarship on land planning, design, and management, the journal should be a respected resource for scholars and practitioners, not just in landscape architecture but in other disciplines as well.

An image of the cover of Landscape Journal vol. 40 no. 1

Landscape Journal is the official journal of the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture (CELA). Landscape Journal offers in-depth exploration of ideas and challenges that are central to contemporary design, planning, and teaching. Besides scholarly features, Landscape Journal includes editorial columns, creative work, and reviews of books, conferences, technology, and exhibitions. In publication since 1982, Landscape Journal continues to be a valuable resource for academics and practitioners.

The Journal of Human Resources Welcomes New Editor

This post was originally published on the Journal of Human Resources blog

The Journal of Human Resources is pleased to welcome Anna Aizer as editor. Anna Aizer is Professor of Economics and Chair of the Economics department at Brown University. She joined Brown in 2003 after graduating from UCLA in 2002 and completing a postdoc at Princeton. She is codirector of the Children’s program at the National Bureau of Economic Research and has been coeditor at the JHR since 2015.

She is a trained health economist and the focus of her work is understanding the high rates of intergenerational transmission of poverty in the US. Her work has been funded by the NIH and the NSF and has been published in the Journal of Human Resources, the American Economic Review, Science, and the Quarterly Journal of Economics.

The editor directs the peer review process, appoints coeditors and associate editors, and leads the journal in terms of content, sound peer review and editorial practice, and policy. The editorial board and journal staff extend their thanks and best wishes to Editor Aizer as she serves in this leadership role.

A picture of the cover of Journal of Human Resources volume 56 number 4, with a link to the journal's website.

The Journal of Human Resources is among the leading journals in empirical microeconomics. Intended for scholars, policy makers, and practitioners, each issue examines research in a variety of fields, including labor economics, development economics, health economics, and the economics of education, discrimination, and retirement. Founded in 1965, the Journal of Human Resources features articles that make scientific contributions in research relevant to public policy practitioners.

Ecological Restoration Editor Named ESA Fellow

Steven N. Handel, editor of Ecological Restoration

Congratulations to Steven N. Handel, editor of UW Press published journal Ecological Restoration, who has been named a 2021 Fellow by the Ecological Society of America. ESA Fellows are recognized for outstanding contributions related to ecological knowledge and are elected for life. Handel was chosen for “contributions in urban restoration ecology, including research on opportunities and methods for adding ecological enhancements to degraded areas; for building important bridges to the landscape architecture profession in prize-winning public projects; and for revising university curricula to better incorporate ecological concepts into landscape design practices.”

On receiving this honor, Handel says:

I am so grateful for this wonderful Fellow award from the ESA. Restoration ecologists learn many things, but we have neither the training nor legal license to actually draw blueprints. For that we must closely collaborate with landscape architects and planners. I have tried to build that link in my writing, public speaking, and university teaching. As editor of Ecological Restoration, I encourage landscape architects to publish their concepts with us, then ask working ecologists to critique those plans. We publish the critiques. I also write editorials in every issue that champion this transdisciplinary thinking. In these ways, we are trying to mesh the thinking of two professions and create a more ecological future for us all.

Handel is Distinguished Professor of Ecology and Evolution at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. He has served as editor of Ecological Restoration since 2011, and his incisive commentary on the state of restoration science can be found in each issue’s editorial section, freely available to read. His latest editorial is entitled “Black and White, and Green,” and considers the connections between racism and environmental degradation.

Biography and Economics in African History

The most recent issue of African Economic History, a special issue entitled “Biography and Economics,” is now available. The lead editor for this issue, Paul Lovejoy, explains his choice of theme:

The inspiration for this special issue on Biography and Economics was the realization that economic history often does not focus on individuals and what their personal testimonies can tell us about economics and economic relationships. The issue brings together five articles that address this theme in different ways; the first through the lens of Philip Quaque on the Gold Coast in the eighteenth century; the second the case of the Ologoudou family on the coast of the Bight of Benin; third through biographical perspectives on enslavement in the upper Guinea coast; fourth, through the memories of indentured women in Natal; and lastly through the autobiographical details found in the wills of freed Africans in Brazil.

This was the final issue for Lovejoy, who is now retired after more than 30 years of editing African Economic History. Browse the table of contents on Project MUSE.

African Economic History Welcomes New Editors

Following the retirement of longtime editor Paul E. Lovejoy, African Economic History has appointed two new editors. Earlier this year, George Bob-Milliar and Chétima Melchisedek joined the existing editorial team of Mariana Candido, Toyin Falola, and Toby Green. Together, the editors recently launched a social media presence for African Economic History, posting about current events related to African economies as well as important research in the field. You can follow AEH on Facebook and Twitter. Read on to learn more about the journal’s new editors.

George M. Bob-Milliar is a senior lecturer in the Department of History and Political Studies, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Kumasi, one of the most prestigious public universities in Ghana. He joined the faculty of KNUST in August 2013 and has been involved in research, teaching, and mentoring of students at all levels. He is currently serving as the director of KNUST’s Centre for Cultural and African Studies (CeCASt). In 2012, Bob-Milliar received his PhD from the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana, the oldest center for African Studies on the continent. Trained as an interdisciplinary scholar, his research lies at the intersection of history, political ethnography, and development studies. He has published in the preeminent journals in his field of specialization. Bob-Milliar has been a visiting fellow at the University of Cambridge, Uganda’s Makerere University, and the Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS), as well as a guest lecturer at the Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany. In 2010, he received the inaugural African Author Prize for the best article published in African Affairs by an author based at an African institution, and in 2012 he was awarded a prize for his contribution to research on African policy issues from the Centre for International Governance Innovation. He sits on the editorial boards of African Affairs, African Review of Economics & Finance, and the Journal of Political Economy and Development.

Chétima Melchisedek is a Banting Postdoctoral Fellow at York University. Before coming to York, Melchisedek was a senior lecturer at the University of Maroua; a fellow at the Nantes Institute for Advanced Studies; the Gordon Henderson Fellow at the Human Rights Research and Education Centre, University of Ottawa; and a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for African Studies at the University of Basel. He earned a PhD in history from the Université Laval and a master’s degree from the University of Ngaoundéré in Cameroon. Melchisedek is a member of the editorial advisory board of the Canadian Journal of African Studies. His articles have appeared in the Historical Journal, African Studies Review, Canadian Journal of African Studies, Journal of Asian and African Studies, Cambridge Archaeological Journal, and Afrique Contemporaine, among others. His article in Cahiers d’Études Africaines (2015) was awarded the Prize for the Best Paper on Central Africa by the Central Africa Studies Association, while his paper in Africa Spectrum (2018) won the UFS/AS Young African Scholar Award. Melchisedek guest edited a special issue of the Canadian Journal of African Studies on “Boko Haram beyond the Media” (Volume 54 Number 2, 2020) and is currently co-editing, with Paul Lovejoy, a volume on Boko Haram and Political Distancing (Trenton: Africa World Press, 2021). Chétima is an affiliate member of the African Academy of Sciences and a founding member of the Cameroon Academy for Young Scientists.

Ghana Studies Welcomes New Editors

Ghana Studies journal is proud to welcome two new editors, Abdul-Gafaru Abdulai and Jeffrey Ahlman. Abdulai and Ahlman take over for outgoing editors Carina Ray and Kofi Baku. The UW Press would like to thank Ray and Baku for all their hard work on behalf of the journal over the course of their three-year term. The following is a brief introduction to the new editors.

Abdul-Gafaru Abdulai holds an MPhil in Development Studies from the University of Cambridge (UK), and a PhD in Development Policy and Management from the University of Manchester, UK. He is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Public Administration at the University of Ghana Business School (UGBS), and an Honorary Research Fellow at the Global Development Institute, University of Manchester. His research centers on the intersection between politics and development, with particular focus on public sector reforms, natural resource governance, spatial inequalities, social policy and social protection, and democratization. He is the co-author of Governing Extractive Industries: Politics, Histories, Ideas (Oxford University Press, 2018). His published work has also appeared in African Affairs, Politics & Policy, New Political Economy, Democratization, Development Policy Review, European Journal of Development Research, Journal of International Development, and Labour, Capital & Society. He won the prestigious Gerti Hesseling Prize (2017), awarded for the best journal article by an African scholar, and was also recipient of a runner-up position for African Affairs’ African Author Prize for best paper published in 2016/2017. In his new role as co-editor of Ghana Studies, he looks forward to deepening the visibility and multidisciplinary outlook of the Journal.

Jeffrey Ahlman is an Associate Professor of History and the Director of the African Studies Program at Smith College, where he specializes in African political, social, and intellectual history. His research reflects on issues of decolonization, political and social sovereignty, citizenship, and the Cold War in mid-twentieth-century Africa. His book, Living with Nkrumahism: Nation, State, and Pan-Africanism in Ghana, was published by Ohio University Press in 2017. He is currently completing two books. The first is a biography of Ghana’s first president, Kwame Nkrumah, which is under contract with Ohio University Press. The second—under contract with I.B. Tauris—is a history of Ghana since approximately the mid-nineteenth century. His other published work has appeared in the Journal of African History, the International Journal of African Historical Studies, Africa Today, Ghana Studies, and Kronos: Southern African Histories. He looks forward to his new role as co-editor of Ghana Studies, where he strives to further promote the journal as the premier site for the interdisciplinary study of Ghana.

Call for Papers

The editors welcome submissions of original research about Ghana for potential publication in Ghana Studies. Submissions from all disciplines will be considered. Manuscripts of interest could explore, but are not limited to, topics such as:

Ghana’s 2020 elections
Ghana’s recent financial crisis
The political economy of oil in Ghana
Questions of inequality
Challenges of structural transformation
Ghanaian-Diasporic Relations

For full guidelines, please visit http://bit.ly/gssubmissions.

Thirty Years of Editing African Economic History

By Mariana Candido, Toyin Falola, and Toby Green, co-editors, African Economic History

African Economic History salutes Professor Paul E. Lovejoy for the thirty-plus years of service he has given to the journal. In that time, Paul has performed wondrous feats in maintaining the vitality of a discipline which is fundamentally relevant to so many areas of African Studies, but which had been allowed to wither on the academic vine. The continued existence of the journal is a standing example of Professor Lovejoy’s outstanding service to the discipline of economic history and the field of African history in general. We will miss his contributions and editorial oversight so very much, but are also so grateful for all that he has done.

With Paul Lovejoy’s retirement as an editor, we are delighted to announce the appointment of two new editors: George Bob-Milliar, of Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, and Melchisedek Chétima, Banting Fellow at York University.

The journal is also pleased to announce that we are now accepting submissions in Portuguese. This opens the journal to a wider range of potential contributors in Africa and Brazil, from which we are very keen to see more submissions. We are pleased to join African Studies Review and the Journal of West African History in taking this step. If you are interested in having your work considered for publication in African Economic History, please see our submission guidelines.

Land Economics and the history of “Sifting and Winnowing”

Land Economics journal founder Richard T. Ely and the battle for academic freedom

The founder of the field of land economics, and of the journal of the same name, played a pivotal role in the history of the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He also scored a victory for academics everywhere when he defended his teaching and scholarship against charges that it promoted a subversive political agenda. Richard T. Ely taught economics at the University of Wisconsin from 1892 to 1925. His Progressivist ideas went against the current of the laissez-faire economic theory of the time, and his support for social reforms and organized labor earned him the scrutiny of the Wisconsin Superintendent of Public Instruction, Oliver E. Wells. Wells charged that Ely was promoting anarchism and socialism to his students, and that he encouraged labor union strikes and boycotts—charges that Ely denied. In fact, he had written articles and books that were critical of socialism. Under media scrutiny, the UW Board of Regents launched an investigation, and Ely was tried in a public hearing in August of 1894. The economics community, as well as other academics, spoke out emphatically in Ely’s defense, and he was acquitted by a unanimous vote. In their report of the hearing, the regents issued a strong statement in support of academic freedom, part of which now graces a plaque on the university’s main administration building. The plaque reads:

Whatever may be the limitations which trammel inquiry elsewhere, we believe that the great state University of Wisconsin should ever encourage that continual and fearless sifting and winnowing by which alone the truth can be found.

This idea of “sifting and winnowing” has become a cornerstone of the University of Wisconsin’s institutional philosophy, and in this phrase, proponents of higher education can recognize the imperative to preserve the freedom to teach and research without censorship.

Ely went on to found the Institute for Research in Land Economics and Public Utilities in 1920, along with the Journal of Land & Public Utility Economics. In 1948, this journal was renamed Land Economics. For more on Ely, see this excellent history of “sifting and winnowing,” which appeared in September of this year to mark the 125^th anniversary of the regents’ statement. Additionally, Ely’s legacy has been a recurring topic in the pages of Land Economics. He is profiled in this tribute from the year of his death, in the published proceedings of a 1948 symposium at UW–Madison on frontiers of housing research, and in the journal’s fiftieth anniversary issue.