AN APOLOGY FROM THE FORMER ASSOCIATE EDITOR

Abstract

This year my dean, for the first time ever, required all the science faculty to report the impact factor of each journal in which we had published a paper. When I saw this requirement it hit me: Our little regional university is undoubtedly the last to catch up with this trend. The vast majority of AJP's authors have surely been under the thumbs of bean-counting administrators 1 for many years. And that means I owe those authors an apology. 1 Just as AJP itself has been under the thumbs of bean-counting librarians, as described by D. P. Jackson,-Appropriate journal use in the modern age,‖ Am. J. Phys. 84(1), 5-6 (2016). 2 Please take note, all reviewers listed in D. P. Jackson and D. V. Schroeder,-AJP reviewers,‖ Am. J. Phys. 83(12), 989-990 (2015); and D. P. Jackson,-AJP reviewers,‖ Am. J. Phys. 84(12), 901-902 (2016). 3 For instance, AJP really should publish fewer regular papers and more of its highly citable Resource Letters, such as B. W. Dreyfus, B. D. Geller, D. E. Meltzer, and V. Sawtelle,-Resource letter TTSM-1: Teaching thermodynamics and statistical mechanics in introductory physics, chemistry,