Academic Expressions

Office of the Provost

Close-up of the Missouri State University seal, at sunrise
Photo by Chris Nagle/Missouri State University.

A New Day for the eJournal

How the CASL team worked with scholars across the U.S. to revitalize the eJournal of Public Affairs — and how you can get involved.

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The eJournal of Public Affairs (EJOPA) is a peer-reviewed, open-access journal that provides a platform for scholarship about public affairs and civic engagement. Since its first issue in 2014, it’s been published and maintained here at Missouri State.

A Refreshed eJournal of Public Affairs

Like many things, EJOPA took a step back during the COVID-19 pandemic. Its editor-in-chief retired, and new issues came to a halt. But interest in its mission and content endured — at Missouri State and beyond. Last year, Dr. Kathy Nordyke, director of citizenship and service learning (CASL), developed a plan to give it new life. Once Nordyke shared the plan with Provost Dr. John Jasinski and Chief Academic Strategy Officer Dr. Ken Brown, they encouraged her to run with it.

Structural Changes

Katherine Nordyke
Dr. Katherine Nordyke, Director of the Office of Citizenship and Service-Learning

First, Nordyke shored up EJOPA’s structural underpinnings so that in the future, something like a key retirement couldn’t topple its publication schedule. “I really felt that to move the eJournal forward, we needed to nurture our partnership with the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU) and with AASCU’s American Democracy Project,” she says.

She reached out to the director of AASCU’s American Democracy Project, Dr. Catherine Copeland, who was thrilled to learn about EJOPA’s revival. Together, they put together an executive leadership board for EJOPA. The board includes Nordyke, Copeland and Jasinski, along with Charles Whitaker, CASL’s editor and communications manager (who previously served as assistant editor for EJOPA); Dr. Rachelle Darabi, emeritus faculty (who led the original effort to launch EJOPA); Mary Ann Wood, director of public affairs support; Dr. Tim Eatman, dean of the Honors Living-Learning Community at Rutgers University; and Dr. Chapman Rackaway, director of civic engagement/political science chair at Radford University.

From Nordyke’s perspective, this breadth and range of representation is crucial. “If we want to pull in national contributors — scholars from across the field of civic learning and public affairs — we need that support,” she says.

Her next step is developing an editorial board, a review board and a robust list of scholars from across the country to serve as reviewers and/or contributors. To this end, Nordyke recently hosted a table at AASCU’s 2024 Civic Learning and Democratic Engagement Meeting, where approximately 50 visitors signed up to be part of EJOPA’s future. “And that was just one conference,” she says.

There’s more exposure for EJOPA on the horizon. In July, Nordyke and fellow EJOPA executive board member Dr. Chapman Rackaway will host a table and poster session about the eJournal during AASCU’s Summer Meeting for Academic and Student Affairs Leaders.

Setting a Schedule

It was also important to establish a clear publication schedule so that EJOPA readers and contributors know what to expect. When Nordyke met with Jasinski and Brown, she committed to producing at least one issue in the first year, then a minimum of two issues each year. Ultimately, she’d love to see EJOPA put out three or four issues annually.

This fall will see the release of the first issue in EJOPA’s new era. Rackaway is serving as guest editor. In 2025, another board member, Dr. Tim Eatman, will serve as guest editor of the spring issue.

Next fall, Nordyke anticipates that EJOPA will roll out an exciting integration with Missouri State’s Public Affairs Conference. “Each fall, the public affairs fellow from the previous year’s Public Affairs Conference will serve as the guest editor for an issue that focuses on the previous year’s public affairs theme,” she says. This schedule will allow the public affairs fellow to offer a reflective perspective on the ideas that circulated during the conference he or she chaired.

And thanks to the enthusiasm for EJOPA and the number of people who’ve already expressed interest in contributing or reviewing, Nordyke says it’s possible that there will be a few special editions, organized around specific themes.

Missouri State's Citizen Scholar statue, as seen from above, with students sitting in the background.
The revitalized eJournal of Public Affairs will offer scholarly research along with content about programs and curricula that promote civic engagement. (Photo by Bob Linder/Missouri State)

Scope

Going forward, EJOPA will include content about student affairs in addition to scholarly research. “Universities across the country have dynamic programs that promote civic engagement,” she says. Paws to the Polls, a voter engagement initiative founded by Dr. Suzanne Walker-Pacheco, is just one example of a Missouri State program that would interest EJOPA audiences from other campuses.

Nordyke also envisions more book reviews and multimedia content, which opens up the field of potential contributors. She hopes that students will submit their work and that EJOPA will become the “gold standard” for a broad range of content about civic engagement and public affairs.

Get Involved with EJOPA

The team behind EJOPA welcomes input and engagement from Missouri State faculty. Whatever your interest — research and writing, reviewing, offering perspective — there’s a meaningful role for you.

Reach out via the EJOPA website. You can also contact Dr. Kathy Nordyke or make a point of connecting with her at FCTL’s Showcase on Teaching and Learning on August 14. EJOPA will have a table at the showcase, and Nordyke would love to share more information with you.

Around Campus…

Missouri State faculty, students and alumni have been busy nurturing professional connections throughout our region.

Toth and Associates recently posted about a visit from faculty in the cooperative engineering program.

“Yesterday, 43 of our Missouri State University alums and students had the opportunity to catch up with Dr. Odun-Ayo, Missouri State’s Cooperative Engineering Program Director, and Dr. Daniel Moreno,” the post read. “We chatted over lunch and showed them around the office. We enjoyed their visit and are excited to have more MSU students in the coming years!”

And the Graduate College released a new video about the Community Graduate Assistantship Program. In the spring, we chatted with Dr. Julie Masterson, dean of the Graduate College, and Dr. Jerry Masterson, program director of graduate interdisciplinary programs, about this initiative.

The program works much like on-campus graduate assistantships; participants receive a tuition waiver and stipend in exchange for a set number of working hours. But instead of working on campus, a community graduate assistant works in a local company.