Academic Psychiatry was born a quarter of a century ago, the scholarly offspring of two parent professional organizations: the American Association of Directors of Psychiatric Residency Training (AADPRT) and the Association for Academic Psychiatry (AAP). Originally named the Journal of Psychiatric Education in 1977 and then renamed Academic Psychiatry in 1989, the journal has had outstanding senior editorial leadership since its inception. Drs. Jonathan Borus and Philip Slavney established the journal as the definitive source for psychiatric education literature. The care, precision, and thoughtfulness behind every letter sent to every author of every paper demonstrated extraordinary integrity, commitment, and professionalism. The process of submitting a paper to Academic Psychiatry became an exceptional and respectful mentoring experience for psychiatric educators in this country.

Drs. Samuel J. Keith and Paul C. Mohl then built upon these strengths, continuing to support the key developmental mission of the journal. They fostered the advancement of scholarship in psychiatric education by giving each manuscript submission very careful consideration and every chance for success, by developing special theme issues, and by emphasizing evidence-oriented papers. They also established an early-career reviewer program in which psychiatric residents, fellows, and young faculty participate in the manuscript review and revision process. The culture of scholarly excellence of our young journal was recognized on that very happy day last year when we learned that Academic Psychiatry had been accepted to the National Library of Medicine's electronic database (MEDLINE) because it had scored so well in a rigorous peer review process.

In light of this history of excellent editorial vision and leadership and because of the many early accomplishments of the journal, it is a special privilege for me to step into the role of the new Editor-in-Chief for Academic Psychiatry after a competitive national search. My first formal work with the journal began in 1994 when, as a resident, I worked with Drs. Borus and Slavney in developing the journal's first special theme issue, which focused on ethics training in psychiatric education. Since then, I have worked with Academic Psychiatry in different capacities: as an author, a reviewer, an editorial assistant, and a guest editor. In all of this work, I have come to recognize the value and importance of this journal ("your journal, our journal," as Dr. Borus has often said). It fills a critically important niche in the literature on psychiatric education and professional development in academic psychiatry. It has been wonderful to see the journal become recognized for its scholarship and for its impact on medical education and academic medicine more broadly. Personally, it has been an extraordinarily important venue for mentorship, collaboration, and scholarly development in my own career. For this reason, it is truly wonderful to have the opportunity to serve Academic Psychiatry as Editor-in-Chief, and I hope to extend the work of the journal so that it will have the same formative role in the professional lives of psychiatric educators and academic psychiatrists in coming years.

Academic Psychiatry, as a relatively young journal, is very healthy as we move into this transition of development and expansion. My challenge is to continue to "grow" the journal in several respects. First, we will need to make every effort to foster the value, standing, and contributions of the journal. Over the next several years, especially as our readership expands through our electronic/web-based version and our inclusion in MEDLINE, it will be important to advance the scholarship and recognition of the journal. We are ready to position the journal more prominently in the broader context of academic medicine. Accomplishing this goal will mean working hard in several areas, for instance, to improve the caliber of published papers, to become proactive in addressing salient issues in medical education generally, and to collaborate actively with potential authors, reviewers, and editors of other journals to cultivate interest and commitment in the area of psychiatric education and academic psychiatry.

A second and related task is that of advancing the scholarship and methods of psychiatric education. There is an emerging commitment to educational innovation in undergraduate and postgraduate training in this country. Curricular standards, assessment methods, and technology-based approaches are evolving rapidly. As the sole journal dedicated to building a shared, rigorous education literature in psychiatry, Academic Psychiatry will become an increasingly important platform for carefully examining, evaluating, and shaping this process. Focusing on this task will entail paying close attention to the experiences and recommendations of education leaders, standard-setting entities, federal agencies and professional organizations, and education researchers across the field of medicine. The journal may play an increasing role in presenting collaborative, peer-reviewed position pieces from AAP and AADPRT related to key issues in psychiatric education and academic psychiatry. It is certain that the journal will need to undertake the exploration of highly relevant content areas given the extraordinary changes and pressures nationally in medical education. Examples include the impact of the evolving graduate medical education requirements and the emergence of new competence-oriented initiatives in physician education; special issues in training international medical graduates; special issues in fostering the academic careers of women and minority psychiatrists; experiences in career development for clinician-educators in the new milieu of academic medicine; and efforts to support professionalism and ethical conduct in clinical care and research in psychiatry. Fulfilling the task of advancing educational methodologies in psychiatry will also involve greater collaboration in the biomedical, information, cognitive, and social sciences. Such cross-disciplinary work is needed, for example, in constructing appropriate performance-based competence assessment measures, in applying social scientific tools to evaluate outcomes of curricular interventions, and in creating and testing new computer-based educational approaches.

Third, it is crucial that the journal continue to serve as a vehicle for academic development, extending its fundamental mentoring mission. This will be accomplished by continuing to assist academic psychiatrists at every stage of professional development as they generate valuable contributions to the education literature while also building their skills and fulfilling their own career aims. Inviting new readers and welcoming new authors into the work of the journal are necessary steps. The journal will also need to be more responsive to the leaders and membership of AADPRT, AAP, and other professional organizations focusing on psychiatric education and academic psychiatry in this country. Toward this end, I will actively seek to bring about dialogue with colleagues from throughout psychiatry and medical education; with the journal's editorial board and governance board; and with authors, reviewers, and readers. In my view, it is also particularly important for us to reach out to medical students and residents who represent the next generation of psychiatric educators and scholars.

A fourth task I will take on is improving the mechanics of the publication process for our journal. It will be important to identify and enact approaches for enhancing the quality and timeliness of papers presented in the journal. Such strategies include being more accessible to authors, rethinking the guidelines for authors and for reviewers for the journal, recruiting more reviewers and organizing the review process more efficiently, significantly decreasing the lag time in the revision and publication process, and working more closely with the outstanding editorial support staff at APPI. To give a concrete example, with recent approval from the governance board for Academic Psychiatry, I will revise the structure of the journal to introduce "Brief Reports." These short publications will focus on evidence-based or theoretical/ descriptive efforts in psychiatric education and professional development in academic psychiatry. It is my hope that this venue will be inviting to authors at all stages in their careers (but especially early-career authors) and that these papers will be more rapidly moved through the publication process.

Finally, to ensure that Academic Psychiatry will continue to thrive, fulfill its mission, and serve its constituencies well, a key task ahead is strengthening the financial base of the journal. This should be a topmost priority during the next five years, and it will mean enhancing the journal's circulation considerably beyond its current level, redoubling efforts to secure consistent and appropriate advertising in the journal, analyzing contractual obligations of the journal, comparing experiences with editors of other journals that have expanded and are financially sound, and making wise choices related to electronic publishing and other technology advances bearing upon the readership and impact of Academic Psychiatry. Through such efforts, over time, we may be able to move the journal from quarterly to more frequent publication.

Academic Psychiatry has had superb editorial leadership and, as a young journal, it is now coming into its own. The journal has a clear focus and an enduring niche in the psychiatric literature. It is well respected and highly valued, and it has outstanding governance and support from its parent organizations, AADPRT and AAP. In stepping into the big shoes of the Editor-in-Chief, I will endeavor to serve the journal—its readers, its authors, its reviewers, and its supporters—conscientiously and capably. I sincerely thank the members of the Academic Psychiatry Editor Search Committee for their confidence and for this privilege. Most of all, Dear Colleague, I hope that you will give me the gift of your involvement, your thoughts, your guidance and (occasional) complaints, and your kind wishes as we seek to fulfill the needed tasks for this journal that is so important to our field.

I offer my deepest thanks and appreciation to the former Academic Psychiatry Editors-in-Chief, Drs. Jonathan Borus, Samuel J. Keith, and Paul C. Mohl, for their excellent examples and good will. I also wish to thank in advance my APPI colleagues, Ms. Sandra Patterson, Ms. Bessie Jones, and Ms. Roxanne Rhodes, and my New Mexican colleagues, Dr. Cynthia Geppert and Ms. Joni Roberts, who will continue to put their good efforts into the activities of the journal.