The great Taoist teacher Lao Tse said, some 2500 years ago, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” This statement is true and often quoted, but many people forget that the first step is only that: a first step, which must be followed by many more, until one reaches the end of the proverbial thousand miles.

As students, we all know that completing the course registration, or the first assignment, or the first course, is a good thing; it feels good and ought to be celebrated. In the end though, it’s the completed journey to graduation that is the pinnacle of those first steps. Likewise, submitting a piece to JIS is an exciting first step—we all enjoy reading the interesting and highly varied pieces that are submitted—but this is only the first step, and must be followed up with many more steps in the form of re-writing and editing (and sometimes some more re-writing) that makes the piece truly ready for publication. By taking that next step, you can also gain valuable experience in the peer-reviewed academic publishing process, as well.

The journey we have started here at JIS began about five years ago with a few students and unfaltering support. Today we are working on stream-lining our publishing process, and seeking out avenues to reach more authors and readers on this journey. Ringing in the New Year also saw us welcome back our long-time JIS faculty advisor, Reinekke Lengelle from her year-long research and study leave. We would like to extend our thanks to Diane Morrison and Dr. Raphael Foshay for their support during Reinekke’s absence.

We have said good-bye to a number of volunteers as they have moved on to other projects. We thank them for their hard work on this journal, and wish them well in their future endeavors. In recent months we have welcomed a number of new volunteers including new Reviewers, Copyeditors, Layout Editors, Assistant Editors, and a Volunteer Coordinator. Welcome aboard to all our new faces (and screen names!) and thank you for volunteering your time and energy with us; we look forward to continuing our journey with you. For those of you who have not yet volunteered, and are considering doing so, we are always looking for enthusiastic and reliable reviewers, copyeditors and proofreaders. Additional positions will also be posted on the Journal of Integrated Studies website and through AU.

Like the MA-IS community, our community here at JIS is a wonderful growing environment for everyone who has the good fortune to be a part of it. In this program, our distance format can lead to a relatively solitary academic experience at times. JIS is looking to provide an additional space for students (future, current, and former), as well as staff, faculty, and readers with an interest in integrated works, to come together and participate in academic discussion over the content published here.

We want to hear what you think!

We’re encouraging all readers to leave comments following the pieces published on the Journal website. To do so, you need to sign in to your account or sign up (it’s free and easy to do). Once you select an article to read, you will scroll down the page and see the option to add a comment. We’re inviting readers to share responses to a piece, to respond to comments left behind by others, and to ask questions of the authors/artists themselves (please remember this is a professional space where discussion is welcomed and where respectful disagreements may occur, but it is also a professional space where individual posters are expected to keep their comments collegial). We welcome all individuals to take this opportunity to share, learn, and interact with fellow readers.

Enjoy reading this issue of the JIS and the interaction with fellow readers in the comments. We look forward to reading your responses to everything we’ve been working on for the last few months! Expect the next issue of your Journal of Integrated Studies to be in the fall of 2014. We are always looking for submissions of artwork, poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction, book reviews and academic articles, with an integrated theme. Please get involved, we look forward to hearing from you.

Until then, we’ll continue on our journey, one step at a time. We’ll see you on the path!

Heather von Stackelberg and Nicole Hill, JIS Journal Co-Editors

(5)1 2014.