From the editor desk.

Harvest is more than just an agricultural event. It is a moving human metaphor. The very word conjures up a wide variety of images and feelings when it is heard, or when we experience it within the context of the colors and changing weather patterns of autumn. In our Northern hemisphere, harvest and autumn signal the energies of another school year, the coming of national holidays, and an overall sense of renewal in the face of "food and feast." However, there is much more to the power of The Harvest than we often realize. There is a moving, even jarring, undercurrent that gives us cause to reflect as human beings in all of our various associations. In essence, "harvest as metaphor" subtly but definitively invites us, even goads us, to reflect deeply on what the seeds of our lives have been and are producing. In other words, the season that is now falling on the Northern hemisphere asks of us: "What is the harvest we are producing?" This is a very powerful question for each of us in research administration. It is the question that seems to thread together this edition of the Journal of Research Administration in a very moving way.

The manuscripts you are about to enjoy seem coincidentally to coalesce around new ways in which we as research executives, managers, and administrators serve as leaders for our various communities and institutions. The articles and reviews that follow challenge us to reflect on the "harvest" that we are producing for those whose research we serve. This challenging reflection begins importantly for us in the memory of our friend and colleague, Herb "Chuck" Chermside, who passed very unexpectedly from this life this past June. This edition of the Journal celebrates Chuck's gifts to us in a very powerful and important way. Chuck was one of the true pioneers of our profession. He saw its complexities and its opportunities fully. He embraced them with a sense of enthusiasm and industry that is incomparable. His never ending dedication to the professionalization of research administration is something that has touched the lives of thousands--and will continue to touch generations to come. Indeed, he left us in summer. And now it is in the autumn, in the time of "harvest," that we are moved to reflect on who and what he has meant for us--only to taste most fully of the feasting of who and what we must be for others into the future. The seeds of what Chuck has done for us have come forth full. And now the tools are handed to us to continue to sow, and till and reap so that the feeding and feasting might continue.

In this edition of the Journal, you will find any number of manuscripts that I hope will stimulate your own reflections upon the harvest of your service in research leadership. Opening articles, dedicated to Chuck, address the professionalization of research administration. Subsequent articles will stretch your imagination into new areas of research administration leadership here and around the world. In the past 60 years of our profession, the seeds of management have burst above the soil in ways that no one would ever have predicted. Today we are policy analysts as well as financial managers. We are educators as well as trainers. We are ethicists as well as regulatory affairs specialists. We are strategic planners and entrepreneurs as well as operational officers. In short, our mission as research administrators is not just about providing "support." Rather we have become part of the very fabric of senior leadership that is central to our institutions. But what does it mean, precisely to lead? Who are leaders anyway?

Perhaps 20 years ago, I read a text that made a real difference to me in how I understood organizations and the people who lead them. Permit me to borrow from that text to reflect with you a bit about the diverse ways that can portray the image of "leader." Obviously, leaders are institutional officials. We have corporate responsibilities to the institutions we serve and those who have shaped those institutions as part of corporate life. Leaders are also community builders. Institutions are not made just of mortar and stone. Institutions are people-realities. Good leaders are dedicated to bringing together good people in good ways for the common good. Leaders are also signs and instruments. In this, leaders in a rare and important way embody the mission of the institution, its aspirations, its goals and its visions that benefit others. Leaders in addition are journeyers. They are "Prime Pilgrims," so to speak, who have a clear and uncommonly brave openness to change and quality improvement even if revisions and reshapings raise up the deepest questions of all. Finally, leaders are servants. Institutions certainly need authorities who take responsibility. But truly "moral authority" is not something exercised from the top down, but from the bottom up. Leaders as servants are those who know the way and show that way first by example ever before doing it by exhortation or decree. Leadership certainly relies on native skills and abilities. But it is an art moreso than a science. It is a human reality ever before it is a theoretical construct whose characteristics can be summarized glibly in a self-help manual. In short, being a leader is an experience, a moment. It is a harvest--not just the result of the techniques of planting. To know leadership means being given the time and the resources to realize one's potential, and to reflect on how it might be deepened. One of those ways of learning the leadership potential that we each have is to reflect on the metaphors around us that show us the way.

This edition of the Journal of Research Administration will provide you with any number of powerful metaphors to reflect upon your own leadership potential and how you are being called to serve the needs of your community, and the growth of our profession. What crowns this edition is the image, the metaphor, the living memory of our friend and colleague, Chuck Chermside, whose leadership to and mentoring of thousands has enriched our profession in ways incalculable. His teaching and mentoring have been his harvest to us. And we have eaten full. But the harvesting and the feasting go on. They go on because the seeds now are planted in us.... and in future generations.... so that those who crave insight and support and creativity are fed what they need. Being committed to becoming research administration leaders can seem daunting. The articles to follow dispel that fear. It is clear that being such a leader into the future is a challenge but an exciting one. Or to paraphrase Emily Dickinson, "I think to lead may be a bliss, for those who dare to try."