New editor's introduction.

With this issue, I begin my term as editor of The Career Development Quarterly (CDQ). Being editor of CDQ is a great honor and an even greater responsibility. As the editor of the premier journal informing career counseling and development, I have now been given the task to both maintain the reputation and quality and, if I have a particularly good run of luck, even enhance it.

A new editor's first editorial should be pithy, introducing the new editor and the new vision, as well as thanking all those whose hard work make our journal possible. I bow to that tradition. I do think that it is good for you (readers and authors) to have a little better idea of what you are getting with a new editor, and, as a counselor, I do think that a little appropriate disclosure can be useful.

For those of you who do not know me, I was born a poor, gay, Cherokee boy in rural southeastern Missouri. Coming from such roots motivated me and made me appreciate what has happened in my career. Such a background, along with a strong need to provide "succorance" (supported by my scores on this subscale of the Edwards Personal Preference Schedule and on similar subscales of the Strong Interest Inventory, Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, and an early Kuder), led me to counseling as my career choice.

My area of specific expertise in our field is multicultural career counseling, and I have published mainly in that area; however, I also have expertise in the history of and the public policy issues in career counseling, career interest assessment, international career development, organizational career development, and the teaching of career counseling.

I am somewhat unusual in many ways in our career development profession and bring a variety of experiences to the editorship of CDQ that I hope will be useful. I have a strong practice background, including more than 20 years in independent practice that I hope will allow me to have sensitivity to and knowledge of articles that may be especially relevant to career development practitioners. (I hold certifications as a Master Career Counselor, Registered Professional Career Counselor [California], and National Certified Career Counselor.) I have a strong research background that I hope will allow me to select articles that advance the science and knowledge of our profession. I have a strong advocacy and social justice background that I hope will enable me to recruit and select, nurture, and mentor authors, as well as editorial board members, who reflect the broad, inclusive diversity of our world. Finally, I also have strong organizational, administrative, financial, and political skills, having been a manager and leader of people and organizations, both for-profit and intentionally not-for-profit organizations. I ought to be good at this. You, my peers, will ultimately be the judge.

These organizational skills are well developed from years of service to the profession in a variety of leadership roles, from editorial responsibilities for books and special issues/sections and from leading such projects as the development of successful grant proposals as well as institutional self-study materials for accreditation. I am considered by my colleagues to be a well-organized and action-oriented person. I hear from my predecessors that these are important characteristics for editors.

Most important, I am a practicing professional career counselor, organizational consultant, counselor educator, and vocational psychologist. The commitment from the previous editors has always been to preserve the nature of CDQ: It is a practice-focused journal, and each article must address the implications of the article for career counselors and other career development professionals. It is my intention to continue that critical tradition.

The foregoing, then, is a natural segue to my vision. During the next 3 years, CDQ will grow dynamically in response to the needs of our field. The structure--Articles, Effective Techniques, Personal Perspectives, Reader Reactions, Brief Reports--will remain the same, but the quantity of articles appearing in those sections will increase. We will have some special issues and sections (international, older workers), but those will arise organically. You will already have noticed that the cover color has changed--from blue to a big, bold purple. I would imagine that almost all of the articles in the new CDQ will address cross-cultural (domestic and international) issues appropriately, in some way, in the context of that specific article. To provide effective career counseling, I believe that we must understand and appreciate the context of our clients and their process.

Within the CDQ review process, we are developing a new method of conducting that process, using enhanced technology and moving toward a fully automated manuscript handling process (we are already counting characters and words, not simply pages) as well as revisions to the review process (new review guidelines). We will provide more information to our readers and authors via the National Career Development Association's (NCDA) Web site (www.ncda.org). For example, we have already placed the last 10 years of our tables of contents on that Web site, and we will have the tables of contents from the new issues of the journal on the Web site quickly. We will have more information and keep it up-to-date. The full text of CDQ articles will increasingly be available online, and finally, the newly revised invitation to authors includes "career counseling, individual and organizational career development, work and leisure, career education, career coaching, and career management," in recognition of our field's changing demographics. Changes.

In 1921, the very first issue of the very first volume of the Bulletin was published. As the official journal of the National Vocational Guidance Association (NVGA; later to be known as the National Career Development Association), this first issue was a landmark in the history of career counseling and development as well as of vocational psychology, because the Bulletin was CDQ's direct ancestor. In that issue, the first editor (Anne B. Davis, she was also the NVGA Secretary) published the proceedings of "The National Convention of the Association" along with newsy tidbits from the eight branches of NVGA. I am pleased to be publishing in my first issue the proceedings of the historic joint symposium between the National Career Development Association and the International Association for Educational and Vocational Guidance held in San Francisco on June 29, 2004.

I mention this and Anne B. Davis because I am quite aware that there is a long line of editors who have come before me. Each has built upon the other. We all have worked to build the knowledge base of our profession through the published work in CDQ and its historic predecessors.

I am inspired by my editorial ancestors: Mark Savickas, Spencer Niles, Paul Salomone, David Jepsen, Ed Whitfield, and Norm Gysbers (CDQ) and Ed Herr (Journal of Counseling & Development). We all stand on the shoulders of these giants of our profession.

The members of CDQ's Editorial Board and their commitment to quality and timely review are what continue to keep CDQ in the highest echelon of applied psychology journals. I want to thank the Editorial Board members who completed their terms in 2004: Nathan Deen, JoAnn Harris-Bowlsbey, Courtland Lee, Joe Ponterotto, Linda Subich, and Richard Young. I also want to thank those who are completing their terms in this year: Barry Chung, Nadya Fouad, Victoria Shivy, and Susan Whiston. Fred Dorn, Rich Feller, Kristin Perrone, and Marie Shoffner have accepted appointments to second terms on the board. I also want to welcome these newly appointed Editorial Board members to their first terms: Bob Chope, Jane Goodman, Paul Gore, John Krumboltz, Gary Peterson, Jeff Prince, Nancy Schlossberg, Michael Shahnasarian, and Bruce Walsh. Mary Guindon and Lee Richmond are writing the annual review of practice and research in career development and counseling that will appear in the December issue. Thank you to all of you who have served and are continuing to serve our profession.

I also want to thank Ellen Piel Cook for her high-quality work as the previous CDQ editor and David Jepsen for his important work editing the June 2005 issue.

Finally, I also want to thank the leaders of NCDA for their continuing support. Without the vitality of NCDA and its leadership, the CDQ could not endure, let alone thrive.

Many thanks to each of you for your support and passion for our profession. I encourage you to send your manuscripts and messages to me at [e-mail]. I look forward to a productive and exciting 3 years.

--Mark Pope, Editor