The Middle Ground Journal, 2015-2016 Summary

Posted on May 15, 2016 by Middle Ground Journal

The Middle Ground Journal, 2015-2016 Summary

Hong-Ming Liang, Ph.D. Chief Editor, The Middle Ground Journal, Associate Professor of History and Politics, The College of St. Scholastica, Duluth, USA.

Overview. The state of the journal is sound. Since our founding in 2010, we have published over 370 items. Our 2016-2017 publication schedule is full. Our relationship with our host, The College of St. Scholastica, is good. The Department of History and Politics of St. Scholastica has generously provided funding which allows for shipping books for review around the U.S. and the world, as well as for online marketing campaigns. The college has continued to grant a course release for my work as the journal’s Chief Editor. We extend a special note of gratitude to Professor Jill Dupont, Chair of the department, for making this possible. We continue to receive broad based support from academic departments across the campus, particularly the Department of History and Politics, the School of Arts and Letters, and support from the college’s IT and other departments.

Publishing. We have developed and published several ongoing and special forums. Particularly noteworthy for this school year is the special forum by Professor Ann Waltner and Ph.D. students at the University of Minnesota. Professor Waltner’s forum highlights the pedagogical uses of reviews for first semester Ph.D. candidates. We have published the reviews from the first group of Ph.D. candidates, and will continue this project for the upcoming school year. Professor Jill Gaeta and Professor Ashley Dressel have also developed two successful forums on literature and global studies and philosophy and the world. Both ongoing forums are charting new areas of coverage for the journal. We have excellent working relationships with major publishers. We receive books from publishers and documentarians regularly. Approximately 50 books will be placed before the end of the 2016-2017 school year, these reviews will cover 2017-2018 school year schedule, and we have approximately 175 books on reserve.

North Star Reports. Because of the generous support from the Department of History and Politics of St. Scholastica, The North Star Reports: Global Citizenship and Digital Literacy (http://NorthStarReports.Org) ISSN: 2377-908X, an affiliated publication, continues to flourish. The NSR is student written and student edited, we currently have 54 (last year was 30) volunteer student editors under my supervision. These students come from all parts of the campus, nursing to healthcare, natural sciences to economics. Articles from the NSR have been used by students at St. Scholastica and Duluth East High School in their studies. The NSR has published over 250 (last year was 150) original articles, covering all habitable continents around the globe, with articles tackling issues as serious as political conflicts and environmental degradation, to light hearted and insightful articles on food, music, “personal space” and so on. This school year marks a new series of articles from students pondering the meaning of “service learning” in the context of global imbalance of power, whether these trips truly help those we intend to assist. NSR student editors also curate a Facebook page dedicated to annotated news articles concerning global and historical events. (http://Facebook.Com/NorthStarReports) The North Star Reports is now listed as a resource on the website of the Council for Undergraduate Research, as well as by the library of University of Nebraska. Having witnessed how students receive these articles from K-12 classes to college classes, it is clear that this collaborative project is innovative and well worthy of the substantial investment in time and resources.

LiangMGJ20152016ChiefEditorSpring2016themiddlegroundjournal.org