NCHC Appoints Editors for JNCHC and Honors in Practice Publications

Lincoln, Neb. – After a rigorous search in which it examined 57 applications, the Publications Board of the National Collegiate Honors Council is pleased to announce the appointment of new editors for Honors in Practice (HIP) and the Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council (JNCHC), who will serve from 2025 through 2028. Dr. Emily Allen, Associate Professor of English and Director of the Blue Sky Teaching and Learning Laboratory at Purdue University, will be the new editor for Honors in Practice. Dr. Amy Mecklenburg-Faenger, Mary Barlow Endowed Chair of English and Director of ParkWrites at Park University, will be the new editor for JNCHC.

A former honors student herself, Dr. Allen has been teaching interdisciplinary honors courses for over twenty-five years. She directed Purdue’s College of Liberal Arts Honors Program from 2008-2012 and led the university-wide team that designed the curriculum for the university’s new honors college, for which she served as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs from 2012-2021. In 2021, Dr. Allen launched the Blue Sky Lab, which focuses on developing, scaling, and translating innovative honors pedagogy. Professor Allen regularly mentors undergraduate researchers and in 2024 published an institutional history with a team of honors students, Forging the Future: A History of the John Martinson Honors College, 2013-2023 (Purdue University Press).

Prior to joining the editorial board at NCHC, Dr. Mecklenburg-Faenger served as Editor of InSight: A Journal of Scholarly Teaching from 2018-2023. Her research focuses on writing across the curriculum and 19-20th century women’s rhetoric, and she has published on topics including accessible WAC practices, writing in STEM disciplines, and historical cookbooks and scrapbooks as rhetorical artifacts. Committed to fostering equity and innovation in education, Dr. Mecklenburg-Faenger looks forward to supporting the NCHC’s mission to advance honors education through her role as editor of the Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council (JNCHC).

Dr. Richard Badenhausen, Dean of the Honors College at Westminster University and chair of the journal editor search committee for NCHC’s Publications Board, shares “We are thrilled to welcome Emily and Amy to their roles as new editors for Honors in Practice and the Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council and look forward to the expertise, experience, and new ideas they will bring to our organization’s publications.”

For more information about the National Collegiate Honors Council and its publications, visit the National Collegiate Honors Council’s website or contact the National Office at 402-472-9150 or hello@nchchonors.org.