Alex Reid, former Editor of the ongoing Learning and Teaching publication Forum, reflects on his role and what he has taken from this position

The recent publication of issue 51 of Forum, the University of York’s staff-created Learning and Teaching magazine, marks the end of my two-year tenure as editor. During this time I oversaw the publication of three issues themed on the ‘future of learning and teaching’, ‘early career development’, and ‘joyful education’, respectively. Collectively these contained a total of 28 articles written by 51 authors including, for the first time in the publication’s history, contributions from our strategic partners at Maastricht University in the Netherlands and CITY College in Greece. Now that my tenure has come to a close I have been asked to write a short reflective blog post on my time as editor. To this end I think I can distil the core lessons I have learned into three salient points.

1. Delegation helps all

While it may sound obvious, effective delegation is critical for any managerial role where you need to achieve results through people. In this instance that translates into properly leveraging the diverse skillset of our editorial committee to process the articles that we receive. As a community-driven initiative, delegation in this manner is a distinct change of pace from my regular approach to work. Specifically, I am often apprehensive about adding to other people’s workloads, particularly for an initiative reliant on volunteers who I know are busy.

The truth of the matter is that effective delegation is essential for collaborative initiatives such as Forum. Firstly, in practical terms, no one individual has the time nor bandwidth to generate such a publication in conjunction with their other responsibilities. Secondly, diversity is a strength, and the range of independent skills and opinions that feed into the editorial process leads to a greater variety of options and insights for me as an editor. Thirdly, following the publication of issue 50, which focussed on early careers development, I have become acutely aware that volunteers on the editorial committee both want and need experience to facilitate their own professional development. Consequently, to not properly delegate roles denies people the opportunity to engage and develop such skills. To this end throughout my tenure as editor I have expanded the list of responsibilities of our editorial committee.

2. Being proactive and not just reactive

By necessity during the pandemic I think we all spent a lot of time reacting to situations rather than being proactive. While ‘reacting’ adaptively is an important skill, I also had to quickly switch to a more proactive stance to adequately plan the trajectory of the magazine weeks and months ahead. Like steering a gigantic cargo ship, it is not a good idea (in fact it is frankly very difficult!) to make sudden reactionary decisions during a development cycle. Planning things so far ahead of time can be somewhat a trial by fire when dealing with a potentially diffuse group of contributors within the university system, each with their own constraints, time pressures and (in some cases) time zones.

Relating to this, one thing I have been keenly aware of is to avoid falling into the trap of what I call ‘Excel sheet thinking’. I use Excel spreadsheets to plan things but am always mindful of what I might be missing. Specifically, ‘Excel sheet thinking’ is the notion that simply because you have put some variables into a spreadsheet it does not necessarily mean you have fully accounted for all the factors that are important for your desired outcome. This is particularly key when considering the ‘human element’ I allude to above. For example, delayed response times to tasks and emails as a product of contributors being on unexpected leave, unable to respond, or simply from being busy. Excel sheet thinking can lead to tight turning circles that may tip your whole ship…

3. Culture is key

Lastly, another thing that has become increasingly apparent to me over the last three issues is how important it is to tap into the cultural impetus of an institution, particularly if you are running an enterprise that is supposed to both represent it, and be propagated through it. When choosing themes for each issue I quickly found it was best to incorporate organically what was considered meaningful to my colleagues. For example, for our most recent issue I piggybacked off a superb York Pedagogy in Practice mini-conference I had attended which was themed on ‘joyful education’ where, on the spur of the moment, I decided to ask the organisers and some of the original contributors if they were interested in generating follow-up articles. 

I feel this issue was particularly strong at harnessing something genuine about the motivations and interests of my fellow educators at the University of York, as perhaps manifested through the large number of photos and images submitted by authors of their various initiatives and projects, some of which are shown in the image above. This ranged from biology-themed cakes to educational Japanese street theatre, all of which collectively made the magazine feel a lot more ‘home grown’ in a way far more preferable than the conventional use of stock images on which we are normally reliant. In short: I would encourage any budding editor to find ways of drawing out and consolidating the themes and passions considered important by the community they are representing as it makes the process far easier and more meaningful for everyone involved.

Closing thoughts 

Overall I have very much enjoyed my tenure as editor. Before starting this role I had heard of editing being called the ‘invisible art’ because people only tend to notice it when it is absent and something has gone rather wrong. While there is certainly a degree of truth to this notion, however it is also perhaps untrue in the sense that good editing is really about facilitating the emergence of something cohesive from its constituent parts, a process that is both visible and a team effort. It has been a privilege to have been part of such a process through Forum magazine, and to help such a diligent and motivated community express itself.

If you are interested in writing for Forum magazine please contact the current editor Dan Jones (dan.jones@york.ac.uk). We always welcome interesting thoughts and ideas for articles. If you would like to learn more about the work that the Learning and Teaching Forum does, including how you can be involved, please sign up to our mailing list.