Congratulations to Dr. Kristi Williams, the newly named incoming editor of the Journal of Marriage and Family (JMF). Dr. Williams was recommended by the NCFR board-appointed search committee (Alan J. Hawkins, Marilyn Coleman, Daphne Hernandez, David R. Johnson, and Kei Nomaguchi) and approved by the Board of Directors in December 2015. Dr. Williams is an associate professor in the Department of Sociology at the Ohio State University. She will succeed Dr. R. Kelly Raley, who will remain editor of record through December 2016.

How NCFR journal editors are selected

You might wonder how NCFR journal editors are selected. The process begins two years in advance of the current editor's last journal issue. The NCFR board identifies members to serve on the editor search committee. This ad hoc committee meets by conference call over a period of months to identify and recruit candidates. Qualified candidates who have completed the application process, including letters of support from their academic institution, are interviewed at the NCFR annual conference. Upon completing the interviews, the search committee meets a final time to review the applicants and make their selection. Shortly after the conference concludes, the board convenes a special meeting for the purpose of receiving the recommendation from the search committee.

To ensure ongoing communication between the board and the editor search committee, the board assigns a liaison to the committee. Communication flows between the board members and the search committee through this liaison and through Jeanne Strand to the staff with regard to operational questions.

Editorial office transitions

Once the board has selected an editor, the NCFR staff organization begins the work of drafting a contract and setting up and equipping the new editorial office. One year before the official change of editors, the new editorial office begins to accept new submissions while the current editorial office continues to work on existing manuscripts through revisions and resubmissions. When all goes well the process is seamless, and while operating two editorial offices in the same calendar year we accomplish a smooth transition. Dr. Williams and her editorial assistant have already visited the University of Texas JMF office in Austin and received training from Dr. Raley and her editorial assistants. The Ohio State University office of JMF began accepting new submissions on February 1, 2016.

Journal editor terms are typically five years in length, including the first year, which is referred to as the transition year. During this first year the new editorial office is collecting manuscripts for their first volume, which commences at the beginning of the next calendar year, and the existing editorial office is publishing their final volume.

Journals and "Early View"

A relatively new feature for NCFR journals, Early View, has created an interesting situation in which the new editorial office may publish articles online before the current editorial office publishes their final issue. Early View allows for completed manuscripts to be published online (only) as soon as they are copyedited and typeset for publication by Wiley-Blackwell, our publisher. These articles are not part of an issue or volume yet but can be seen online and cited by researchers before the hard copy issue has been printed. In some cases, this allows for several months of additional exposure before the print issue is published. Notice of these Early View articles is sent via email to all NCFR members who purchase journals as part of their membership.

You might wonder how these Early View articles can be cited if they are not yet part of a printed issue and have no issue or volume number and no page numbers. Every article slated for publication is assigned a unique code called a Digital Object Identifier (DOI). When the article is first posted online, the DOI is used in place of the volume, issue, and page numbers for identification and citation purposes. The unique DOI remains with that article in perpetuity.

Congratulations to the 2015 class of NCFR Fellows

The NCFR board has named four Fellows to the Class of 2015: Francesca Adler-Baeder, Stephen Gavazzi, Ramona F. Oswald, and Donna Sollie. Additional information about these accomplished family scholars is presented elsewhere in this issue of Report. Congratulations! These Fellows will be inducted in a ceremony to take place at the 2016 NCFR conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Thank you to the Fellows Committee for their work in soliciting, reviewing, and recommending this class of Fellows. The members of the 2015 Fellows Committee were Marilyn Coleman, Adriana Umaña-Taylor, Francisco Villarruel, Katherine Allen, Stephen Jorgensen, and Board Liaison Karen Seccombe.

The Fellows award process

If you've ever wondered how Fellows are selected, it begins with the election of the selection committee and falls under board responsibilities. The NCFR board has determined to create the selection committee through a membership-wide election. Once elected and formed, this committee solicits Fellows nominations from the membership. The criteria, nomination procedures, and policies are posted on the NCFR website at https://www.ncfr.org/awards/ncfr-fellow-status/how-become-ncfr-fellow. Changes to Fellows policies, procedures, and selection criteria are reviewed by the Fellows Committee and passed on to the Board of Directors for approval.

The Fellows Committee convenes at the annual conference to review the nominations and make its selections. At the completion of their process, the Fellows Committee recommends its selections to the NCFR Board of Directors. Board approval is followed by letters to all nominated members. The new Fellows are announced via Zippy News and media releases in January, covered in more depth in this spring issue of NCFR Report, and inducted at a ceremony at the next annual conference in November.

If you have someone in mind to nominate for the 2016 Class of Fellows you have until Sept. 15, 2016, to submit your nomination.