From the 
Editor's 
Desk 

Ernest A. Lynton 

It is a time of transition, within our small campus and on the national 
scene. At the micro level, this issue, the last of our third volume, marks the 
end of our association with Transaction Publishers. Beginning with the 
next issue, Metropolitan Universities will be published by and at Wright 
State University. We are happy about the move because it will consolidate 
and facilitate production. But we never could have started our new 
venture without the personal support and the technical resources of our 
partners at Transaction. We are most grateful to Irving Louis Horowitz, its 
president; to Mary Curtis, its publisher; and to all the members of its staff 
who contributed to the evolution of our journal. 

Transition, of rather more profound significance, has taken place on 
the national scene. These remarks are written on the day after the presi-
dential election. By the time they are published, Bill Clinton will have been 
sworn in and his initial program presented: a quarterly journal with a 
production time line of several months is not the vehicle for timely 
comments on current events. Yet the potential impact of the change in 
Washington on the fate of our metropolitan areas and hence on the role of 
metropolitan universities is so considerable that it must be mentioned in 
these jottings. Metropolitan issues did not loom large during the cam-
paign, but there is much reason to hope, and to expect, that they will 
receive substantially more attention from the new administration than 
they have had in the recent past. Metropolitan universities will have 
increased opportunities as well as greater responsibility to be, as is our 
claim, major intellectual and cultural resources to our region. 

That intensifies the urgent need for these institutions to take a critical 
look at the institutional practices, structures, and policies so as to ensure 
that these facilitate, and do not hinder, the complex tasks ahead. Para-
mount among the matters requiring attention is the quality of the teaching 
and learning that goes on, under our aegis, both on and off campus, inside 
and outside the classroom. Assessment, a powerful tool in this undertak-
ing, is the theme of the current issue of Metropolitan Universities . I am most 
grateful to Barbara Wright, who for three years directed the Assessment 
Forum of the American Association for Higher Education and has now 
returned to the faculty of the University of Connecticut. She has done a 
magnificent job as guest editor: indeed, she identified so many excellent 
authors that we are forced to hold over several contributions until the 
next issue. 


	MU1993-Spring-003_page2