Number 23 (2024)

Editors' Note

Dear Readers:

We are pleased to share with you the twenty-third edition of Growth: The Journal of the Association for Christians in Student Development. For twenty-three years, Growth has strived to provide readers with relevant original research and pertinent professional development to aid in our work with college students. This year marks a new era in the journal’s history, as we have decided to transition the publication to a purely electronic format. As always, we trust that you will find the articles and book reviews in this current issue to be helpful in informing your work as educators.

This year, you will encounter five feature articles focusing on pornography use among young Christian men, internet addiction and academic achievement, the racial attitudes of White students, learning outcomes from study “abroad” programs, and considering student technology use as a form of digital restlessness. These articles are followed by a book review introducing us to a new publication that can guide and shape our efforts as student development practitioners.

We are grateful to those who work to make Growth possible, including Julia VanderMolen, Director of Calvin Cohorts at Calvin University, who serves in the role of Book Review Editor and the Associate Editor, Eli Casteel, who has provided guidance to the review of materials and publication processes of the journal. They, along with our peer review team, have put forth great effort to produce an edition that represents strong scholarship and is diverse in its coverage of topics.

We particularly want to encourage you, the reader, to consider submitting manuscripts for consideration for future issues of Growth; the next edition will be published in the spring of 2025. Publication guidelines are included at the end of this issue and are also available on the Association for Christians in Student Development website. We are especially interested in manuscripts presenting original research and encourage anyone who has recently completed a graduate thesis or dissertation to submit an article.

The scholarship team would like to thank you for your support of Growth: The Journal of the Association for Christians in Student Development. We hope you find it to be an engaging and insightful resource.

Sincerely,

Dr. Skip Trudeau, Co-Editor

Austin Smith, Co-Editor