introduction of Doug Smith as new editor of SR

Smith, D. Clayton

English

eGrove (Univ. of Mississippi)

Journal of Rural Social Sciences Volume 21 Issue 2 Volume 21, Issue 2 Article 1 12-31-2006 Editor's Preface D. Clayton Smith Western Kentucky University Follow this and additional works at: https://egrove.olemiss.edu/jrss  Part of the Rural Sociology Commons Recommended Citation Smith, D.. 2006. "Editor's Preface." Journal of Rural Social Sciences, 21(2): Article 1. Available At: https://egrove.olemiss.edu/jrss/vol21/iss2/1 This Editorial is brought to you for free and open access by the Center for Population Studies at eGrove. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal of Rural Social Sciences by an authorized editor of eGrove. For more information, please contact egrove@olemiss.edu. iSOUTHERN RURAL SOCIOLOGY , 21(2), 2006, pp. i-iv. Copyright © by the Southern Rural Sociological AssociationEDITOR’S PREFACEThis issue of Southern Rural Sociology (SRS) is my second and completes my firstvolume as editor of the official journal of the Southern Rural SociologicalAssociation. While an editor’s introduction would usually be included with the firstissue, I chose to omit it then. I was focused on the look and feel of the journal andwebsite as we transitioned from print to electronic format. Now that my team andI are moving along apace, I would like to introduce myself for those of you who donot know me, quickly recap the history of SRS to gain some perspective on wherewe have been, and discuss the direction of the journal over the next two years.So Who Is D. Clayton Smith and What Is He Going to Be like as Editor?First off, call me Doug. Only strangers call me Clayton. My nom de plume is D.Clayton Smith because I have very common given and surnames. I am currently anAssociate Professor of Sociology at Western Kentucky University. Originally, I amfrom New Castle, Kentucky (a town in the outer Bluegrass region with a populationstill less than 1,000 persons). Although I grew up in town, the son of a tirelesspublic servant/prankster and his smart, long-suffering wife, some of my favoritememories occur at my grandfather’s farm and at the ridge farms on Flat Rock Roadwhere my father and I used to go cut the family Christmas trees. Most of myextended family still farm although my immediate family left farming when mygrandfather sold his land in the 1980s. As for my professional training, my undergraduate degree was a B.A. inSociology from Transylvania University where my mentor was Dorothy (Bashor)Neff, an Iowa State trained sociologist/rural sociologist. My master’s and Ph.D. arein Sociology from The Pennsylvania State University, where I fell in with RexWarland, Al Luloff, Ken Wilkinson and their students. I consider myself an eclectic sociologist. I always knew that I wanted to comeback to Kentucky and work with folks, especially folks in rural places. I hadassumed that to do so would require me teaching at a small college where I wouldbe required to teach all aspects of sociology, so I studied broadly. I was wrong, ofcourse. A good deed and a blown engine serendipitously landed me a researchanalyst job with the Kentucky Department of Education, and after two years, myposition at WKU opened. While my personal research interests lie in the intersticesof community, natural resource use, environmentalism, social movements, and1Smith: Editor's PrefacePublished by eGrove, 2006ii SOUTHERN RURAL SOCIOLOGYsymbolic interactionism, I have always attempted to pursue sociology writ large.Over my career I have coauthored two books, Don’t Burn It Here: GrassrootsChallenges to Trash Incinerators (with Ed Walsh and Rex Warland) and Basics andApplications of Sociology (with James Grimm and Amy Krull) as well as articles oneducation performance differences, health insurance and its effects on physical andmental well-being, and ecofeminism.A couple of things are evident from this short autobiography. First, I have adesire to use social science to understand and ameliorate real world problems. Thisdesire has drawn me to into the orbit of rural sociology and rural sociologists. Ihave always felt humbled to be accepted as a peer among those who do so much forso many. Thus, I am really proud to serve as editor of SRS.Second, my eclecticism means that I do not come to this editorship with anyagendas. All flavors of rural scholarship are welcome here. I will not turn away amanuscript because it does not use the terminology that my research program uses.I have been on the other side of that 8-ball and it is nonproductive for both scholarand discipline. I will not play that game. Moreover, I also recognize that bothqualitative and quantitative research have their place in advancing knowledge. Myconcern is that the research I publish is valid, reliable, accurate, and well-written.If your research strives toward those goals, you can publish with me.A Thankful and Abbreviated RemembranceSouthern Rural Sociology started in 1984 when editor G. Richard Wetherill (andhis editorial board: Ronald C. Wimberly, Howard Ladewig, and Lionel J. Beaulieu)took seven selected papers from the Rural Sociology Section of the 1983 annualmeetings of the Southern Association of Agricultural Scientists and bound themtogether to form the first issue of SRS. The next year, a much more “official-looking” issue of the journal was published under the editorial guidance of James H.Copp. At the time the hope of the society was that the journal would be publishedbiannually with one issue being drawn from papers delivered at the annual meetingsand the other from submitted manuscripts. It took some time, but SRS finallyreached the goal of two issues under Connor Bailey’s editorship of Volume 18 in2002. I would like to thank all those officers, editorial board members, and reviewerswho have worked so hard over the past 23 years to produce this journal. I wouldespecially like to acknowledge the work of the editors who preceded me. In orderthey are: G. Richard Wetherill, James H. Copp, Robert L. Moxley, Douglas Bachtel,Glenn D. Israel, Connor Bailey, and Robert Zabawa and Ntam Baharanyi. Without2Journal of Rural Social Sciences, Vol. 21 [2006], Iss. 2, Art. 1https://egrove.olemiss.edu/jrss/vol21/iss2/1EDITOR’S PREFACE iiitheir work to draw on and learn from, my editorship would be a much more difficultproposition. I especially would like to thank Drs. Zabawa and Baharanyi for all theirhelp in making SRS’s transition from Tuskegee University to Western KentuckyUniversity easy. All of the articles in Volume 21, Issue 1 and three articles inVolume 21, Issue 2 (including both of the articles with which I am an author) wereaccepted for publication under their editorship. Gentlemen, thanks for the headstart.So, Where Am I Taking So uthe rn Rural So c io lo gy?From my vantage point it appears that SRS has consistently battled two issues:production costs and access. By moving to the new electronic format we have beenable to virtually (pun intended) do away with most publication costs whileincreasing our visibility in internet search engines. This means: a) that instead ofhaving to charge authors $30 a page to publish their article that instead we cancharge an article submission fee of $20-30, depending on SRSA membership, andb) that we are making our research much more accessible to our students and to thepublic who are more apt to search for articles using Google Scholar or Ask.comrather than search a library database. Do not fear. I am still working to get SRSindexed in scholarly databases. However, it seems to me that the role thosedatabases are playing in real world information exchange is declining.In any event, our new electronic format allows for just-in-time journalproduction. When I get five articles accepted, I publish the journal. This can meana much shorter period from initial submission to publication. I took over the journalin February. Two of the articles in this issue were submitted to me directly and arenot leftover from the previous editors. One of these articles was submitted in lateMarch, the other in August. Both underwent review, were revised and resubmitted,were re-reviewed, and are now being published. The crucial point of this exampleshould be clear. If you want your research out quicker, submit it to SRS. If yourresearch is good, it will get published, it will get indexed, and it will be found andread. Lastly, let me mention the forthcoming special issues and the security theyprovide. When I took the editor’s mantle, several folks approached me about guestediting special issues of the journal. With the concurrence of my editorial board,SRS currently has four guest-edited issues underway. This assures me the rest ofthe issues required during my tenure as editor. However, I will not rest on mylaurels. I envision increased manuscript submissions allowing me to produce threeto four issues of the journal each year for the next two years. It is definitely3Smith: Editor's PrefacePublished by eGrove, 2006iv SOUTHERN RURAL SOCIOLOGYpossible, but I cannot do that without your submissions and your readership. Sosend me your articles (or your proposals for additional special issues), read thecurrent issue (or peruse the back issues {I am posting more back issue content asrelease forms are signed and journals scanned}) and let us work together to advanceour scholarship and our praxis. I look forward to reviewing your work soon.D. Clayton SmithJanuary 13, 2007Bowling Green, Kentucky4Journal of Rural Social Sciences, Vol. 21 [2006], Iss. 2, Art. 1https://egrove.olemiss.edu/jrss/vol21/iss2/1

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