Editor's Letter: What to Expect When You’re Teaching Advertising

Abstract

A forever memory: my first child had been born a few weeks earlier. The grandparents headed home, leaving me on the couch with my wife upstairs and a new Newell, burrito-wrapped against the midwinter Georgia chill, on my lap. My one thought: “Now what?” The “now what” question returns to its top-of-mind position at times of change. Like now. COVID is still with us. Advertising as a major is less than Jon Hamm cool to the generation that had just finished elementary school when Mad Men concluded. That demographic cliff, with its end-of-world enrollment predictions, is just around the corner. It’ll work out. That baby on my lap is now living his adult life, solving his own “now what” questions. And advertising, if not stronger, is at least as ubiquitous as ever, and retains its ability to show us a better life. The “now what” happens a day at a time, and it’s time for this issue of the Journal of Advertising Education. Here you can read the JAE’s first publication from South African authors: Rodney Duffet and Dylan Cromhout look at service learning from the client side. Do clients get what they need? Our colleague Valerie Jones leads a team of University of Nebraska-Lincoln students in an exploration of ethics and audiences. Leslie Haines reviews the updated version of the Copy Workshop’s Brand Builder Workbook—new challenges get new tools. And Courtney Childs, a pioneer of social media education, builds on 10 years’ worth of teaching and industry feedback to suggest what’s next for educating students in the business side of social media. This will be my final issue as editor. The new editor is one of my favorite contributors, reviewers, and colleagues: Dr. Juan Mundel of Arizona State University. As I made the journal that Keith Johnson birthed decades ago my own, Juan Mundel will do the same. And more. I wish him the best of luck. And to the authors, reviewers, board members, and especially readers of the Journal of Advertising Education, I thank you and hope that your “now whats” are as fulfilling as mine.