JEQ, NSE mark their 50th volumes

The founders’ vision of the Journal of Agronomic Education matches the current scope of NSE. Co-editors W.F. Hueg, Jr. and B.R. Bertramson stated in their Volume 1 editorial,1 “This first issue of the Journal of Agronomic Education is … a publication dealing with the problems and opportunities in plant and soil science education.” They go on to say, “We believe the journal may serve educators and communicators of other agricultural disciplines to which agronomy is closely related—such as horticulture, entomology, and plant pathology. The basic teaching methods are applicable to teaching in all these related disciplines.”

In publishing NSE, we continue to serve the original goal of its founders by formalizing the association with other societies through our cooperators. Continued service to the multidisciplinary community of natural science educators by publishing outstanding, peer-reviewed articles and information is our goal for the future.

Journal of Environmental Quality

As A.A. Hanson, JEQ’s first editor, stated in his editorial to volume 1,2 the journal began with the mission to be an outlet for research “concerned with the protection and improvement of environmental quality in natural and agricultural ecosystems.” While its scope has been refined over the years, its mission remains the same.

Journal of Environmental Quality, the Societies’ first joint publication, publishes original research, reviews and analyses, and environmental issue articles that address anthropogenic impacts on water, soil, and the atmosphere and pertain to some aspect of environmental quality in natural and agricultural ecosystems. The journal publishes articles under various subject headings, which have evolved to reflect current trends in environmental sciences.

The Society presidents outlined their goals in the foreword to JEQ’s first issue3: “To provide a focus on environmental quality work. … To provide recognition for scientists whose research is directed toward this area of investigation. …To make it possible for scientists in other disciplines to locate and recognize our contributions to environmental quality more readily than in the past.”

As the current JEQ editor, Douglas Smith, noted in his editorial in Volume 50, Issue 14, “If we look back to where we were globally 50 years ago, there were tremendous environmental problems,” including acid rain, erosion, and heavy metal contamination. Since that first issue of JEQ in 1972, he continues, “we have certainly come a long way toward recognizing how we impact the environment and working through how to mitigate those issues.” The JEQ board’s aim is to be instrumental in solving some of the vexing challenges that face us in 2021, such as “understanding the trade-offs associated with mitigating environmental concerns and developing strategies to ensure the trade-offs do not become larger problems than the original ones, and recognizing and ameliorating emerging environmental concerns before they are pervasive.”

Service, Longevity, and Value

While at first glance, JEQ and NSE may not seem to have much in common, they derive from shared goals: to serve a multidisciplinary audience, provide value to authors and readers alike, and expand our Societies’ impact and influence on the larger community. With their 50th volumes, these two journals reveal the same success in expanding and adapting to current scholarly trends as was true for their first volumes.