From the Editor's Desk Ernest A. Lynton After a lengthy hiatus, the position of Book Editor for Metropolitan Uni- versities is once again filled. We are delighted to welcome Trevor Colbourn, President Emeritus of the University of Central Florida, historian of the American Revolution, author of many books, articles, and reviews--and also ,\ former book editor some thirty years ago for Pennsylvania History. Dr. Colbourn served as Graduate Dean at the University ofNew Hampshire and Academic Vice President and Acting President of San Diego State Univer- sity before becoming President of what was then Florida Technical Univer- sity. He succeeded in changing the name of the institution to the University of Central Florida, and presided for eleven years over its steady development. We will begin to reap the fruits of Dr. Colbourn's labor with the next issue. Another transition marks this issue: it is the last one jointly published by Towson State University and the University of Massachusetts at Boston. Continuing and indeed still deteriorating financial resources have forced the latter to terminate its financial support for the journal. Towson State is now the sole publisher on behalf of the Coalition of Urban and Metropolitan Uni- versities. The Coalition as well as the editorial staff of the journal are most grateful to the University of Massachusetts at Boston for its past contribu- tions, and look forward to its continuing participation in Coalition activities. Our thanks go as well to Karl Beeler, Associate Vice President for Stu- dent Affairs at the University of Missouri, St.Louis, who has done a superb job as guest editor for this issue. Our readers will benefit from the quality of his choices of topics and authors. As editor, I profited as well from the way in which he got all contributions in on time and with all t's crossed and i's dotted. That's no mean achievement, as any reader with editorial experience can attest! Dr. Beeler's overview describes the content and relationship of the ar- ticles; it requires no repetition. But two pertinent remarks are in order. One is an expression of pleasure at a first: one of the articles is co-authored by an undergraduate and a graduate student, and describes an interesting project designed and implemented by these two individuals. I am sure that other metropolitan universities have student-initiated projects and programs of particular interest, and would welcome pertinent manuscripts. 4 Metropolitan Universities/Summer 1996 I want to share as well some thoughts triggered by several of the articles in this issue, especially the one by Ken Lawson and Le Vester Tubbs stressing the need to relate international and multicultural education. As I have men- tioned previously in these pages, I have long been concerned by our failure to take advantage of the linguistic diversity of our student body. Indeed, we usually treat as a handicap what could so easily be a real asset: a student's knowledge of a language other than English. Bilingual education in primary and secondary schools is most commonly viewed as a way of coping with linguistic deficiencies--i.e., inadequate famil- iarity with English--rather than being recognized for its potential to enrich both native English speakers as well as immigrants and others more familiar with another language. A few public schools in Washington, DC, and else- where are truly bilingual in that all their pupils, whatever their origin, acquire mastery of at least two languages. The success of these institutions depends largely on having a student body with a variety of linguistic backgrounds. They capitalize on what others view as a problem. Surely there is also more that we can do in higher education to turn an apparent handicap into an asset. Two of the articles in this issue - one by Kim Wilcox and Carol Koehler and one by Douglas Stutler - describe imaginative ways of using student experience and expertise to enrich the learning process of other students. Why can this not be generalized so as to take advantage of the linguistic abilities and cultural insights of students from diverse ethnic groups? Wilcox and Koehler describe the use of students as providers of supplemental instruction. Stutler suggests using students' prior experience by having them function as learner experts. Surely approaches such as these could be used to capitalize on the capabilities of students speaking languages other than English, thereby giving them a sense of pride and accomplishment while expanding learning opportunities for those speaking only English.