Foreword.

• Date: 22 March 2008

Everything in this issue is in some way connected to The Journal's past. The first two essays, one by Professors Barger and Gustafson, who are still with The Journal, and one by Dean Smith, who is now president of Southern Virginia University, both address its founding. Coleen and Lindsey write about what it was like to put the first issue together, and Rod writes about how that process looked from a slight remove. Together, their memories help the rest of us understand how The Journal came to be. That founding narrative is unique, of course, but it is universal too: There was an idea, then there was a plan, and then there was lots of work. And although nobody has ever said so, I have always supposed that there were also some crossed fingers, a few moments of doubt, the occasional...