Reclaiming our history: the National Career Development Association journal editors

Career Development Quarterly, June, 2008 by Mark Pope

As part of some other historical research I am conducting, I developed a list of all the editors of the journal of the National Career Development Association (NCDA)--The Career Development Quarterly (CDQ)--and thought it would be a valuable archival piece to include for the historians of our profession in my last issue as editor of our journal.

In 1911, the progenitor of CDQ--the Vocational Guidance News-Letter--was founded under the editorship of Frederick J. Allen. From that beginning, the listing at the end of this editorial identifies the chronology of the changes in CDQ, both in journal names and in journal editors.

In 1952, 'The Personnel and Guidance Journal (PGJ; now called the Journal of Counseling & Development [JCD]) became the journal of the new American Personnel and Guidance Association (APGA; now the American Counseling Association), with the National Vocational Guidance Association (NVGA; now the NCDA) as one of its four founding divisions. Through an agreement between APGA and NVGA, the NVGA journal (then called Occupations: The Vocational Guidance Journal) along with its editor (William D. Wilkins), editorial board, and staff, became the operational foundation of the new PGJ. This was a political decision made to support the new professional association and the broadened mission of that new PGJ.

However, the 1952 NVGA board of directors also wanted to maintain its own journal, a journal devoted to career counseling and career development. When the operations side of Occupations was transferred to the new APGA, the historical mission and purpose of the journal were taken over by The Vocational Guidance Quarterly ( VGQ). Thus, VGQwas a direct descendant of Occupations. A new editor was selected for VGQ(Max V. Baer, who was also serving as NVGA president) along with an editorial board that included many of the editorial board members from Occupations, and the NVGA journal continued to be published without missing an issue.

The complicating factor in all this is that, although the new APGA journal continued the volume numbers of Occupations beginning with Volume 31 (Ginter, 2002), it has not continued the history, mission, and purpose, nor docs it even always acknowledge its lineage. In fact, as recently as 2006 in Volume 84, Number 2 of JCD, the historical listing of editors of that journal (Former Editors of JCD, 2006, p. 255) only begins with William D. Wilkins in 1952.

We, the CDQ editorial board, feel strongly that CDQ must reclaim its past and acknowledge the historical contributions of all its previous editors. We do not quibble with the dual branched heritage of JCD and CDQ and would encourage JCD to acknowledge its historic roots, but we are also clear about the lineage of our journal. Our current volume number may be only 56, but we know that the historical reality is much different, and so we publish here the list of the editors of the journal of NCDA--CDQ--from its true and proper historic beginning, 1911.

Furthermore, there is precedent to renumber journal volumes downward--witness the combining of the two major school counseling journals. After publishing 735 manuscripts in Elementary School Guidance and Counseling (through Volume 31) and 850 in The School Counselor (through Volume 44), the two journals merged in 1997 to form Professional School Counseling, Volume 1. Although the history is not lost, it is much more difficult to decipher.

Rarely have journals retrieved their original volume numbering schema, and the CDQ editorial board are not proposing this. Although that might be appropriate here, we feel that it would be potentially confusing for our profession and for other readers of our journal in the years to come. We are, however, reclaiming our history and lineage and acknowledging the contributions of our previous editors to the knowledge of our field from 1911 to the present.

Finally, this is the last issue of my last volume as CDQeditor because I have finished my term. I am passing on the editorship of CDQ to Jerry Trusty of The Pennsylvania State University. He will be an outstanding editor of our journal.

Thank you for allowing me to have been both the principal guide and the guardian of this important journal for these last 3 years. It has truly been a labor of love.

References

Former editors of JCD. (2006). Journal of Counseling & Development, 84, 255.

Ginter, E. J. (2002). Journal of Counseling & Development (JCD) and counseling's interwoven nature: Achieving a more complete understanding of the present through "historization" (musings of an exiting editor--an editorial postscript). Journal of Counseling & Development, 80, 219-222.

NCDA Journal Editors

(chronological order in parentheses)

1911       Vocational Guidance News-Letter Frederick J. Allen (1)
1915-1918  Vocational Guidance Bulletin
1915-1918  W. Carson Ryan Jr. (2)
1918       Roy W, Kelly (3)
(Publication suspended during World War I)

1921-1924  The National Vocational Guidance Association Bulletin
1921-1923  Anne S. Davis (4)
1923-1924  Frederick J. Allen (5)
1924-1933  The Vocational Guidance Magazine
1924-1927  Frederick J. Allen (5)
1927-1933  Fred C. Smith (6)
1933-1944  Occupations: The Vocational Guidance Magazine
1933-1937  Fred C. Smith (6)
1937-1944  Harry Dexter Kitson (7)
1944-1952  Occupations: The Vocational Guidance journal
1944-1950  Harry Dexter Kitson (7)
1950-1951  Campbell B. Beard (8)
1951-1952  William D. Wilkins (9)
1952-1986  The Vocational Guidance Quarterly
1952-1953  Max F Baer (10)
1953-1954  Marguerite W. Zapoleon (11)
1954-1955  Clarence W. Failor(12)
1955-1961  DeImontK. Byrn (13)
1961-1962  Martin Hamburger (14)
1962-1970  Norman C. Gysbers (15)
1970-1976  Daniel Sinick (16)
1976-1982  Edwin A. Whitfield (17)
1982-1986  David A. Jepsen (18)
1986-      The Career Development Quarterly
1986-1988  David A. Jepsen (18)
1988-1991  Paul R. Salomone (19)
1991-1998  Mark L. Savickas (20)
1998-2003  Spencer G. Niles (21)
2003-2005  Ellen Piel Cook (22)
2005-2008  Mark Pope (23)
2008-2011  Jerry Trusty (24)