As the authors featured in this issue of BWe demonstrate, studies of student experience provide a valuable perspective on the efficacy of particular basic writing curricula and program structures. Questions raised in this issue include: What types of learning and support do students value? How do students respond to specific class activities? What motivates basic writing students to become actively involved in their courses? And what topics engage the interest of future basic writing instructors?  While basic writing research focused on curricula, course pass rates, writing evaluations, persistence and retention provides valuable information, we need more scholarship focused on student perceptions of learning. These studies allow us to view educational environments through learners' eyes and envision curricula that will engage and motivate our own students.

In "The Place of Writing at Wedonwan U," Marcia Buell describes her graduate students' responses to a simulation activity that fosters discussion about mainstreaming basic writing.  While assuming the perspectives of various stakeholders, Buell's graduate students debated a proposal to move basic writing off campus (to community colleges) or to mainstream BW students in a senior college composition course. Similarly, in "Speaking for Themselves," Tom Peele affords readers an opportunity to hear basic writing students comment on their relationships with time, with instructors, with each other, and with online learning as key to their satisfaction and ultimate success in a Boise State University Stretch program.

You will also learn about two highly significant books of special interest to BW teacher-scholars in this BWe issue. In a review of Mike Rose's Back to School, Adam Sprague outlines the motivations and challenges of nontraditional students attending classes in U.S. community colleges. Summarizing Rose, Sprague deftly portrays the lives of individuals whose employment, finances, and family responsibilities make attending classes a high-stakes venture for those whose futures are most at risk for economic stress and under-employment. And in a review of Jay Jordan's Redesigning Composition for Multilingual Realities, Emily Simnitt calls attention to the need for instructional approaches that account for the experiences of English language learners in college composition courses. As Sprague and Simnitt point out, both Mike Rose and Jay Jordan provide their readers with plenty of opportunities to hear students give voice to their experiences as writing students.

One of our current authors, Tom Peele, is guest editor of an upcoming special thematic issue on basic writing and community engagement. We look forward to publishing Tom Peele's special thematic issue in July 2015.

As for future BWe publishing opportunities, you will find here on our web site a new Call For Papers for contributions to a special thematic issue focusing on accelerated learning in BW contexts and the increasing presence of Accelerated Learning Program on U.S. college campuses. Guest editors for that issue are Jennifer Maloy, Leah Andherst, and Jed Sharer. And we continually seek reviews of books published in the past five years. If you would like to publish a review of a textbook or a scholarly book, please contact me with your idea or submit a completed book review.

As is true for most journals, we depend heavily on the generosity and expertise of our manuscript reviewers. For reviewing manuscripts published in this issue, I gratefully acknowledge contributions by  Sonya Armstrong, Greg Glau, William Lalicker, and J. Elizabeth Clark. For intelligent problem-solving, extensive journal production activities, and numerous enjoyable evenings spent discussing BWe, dissertation writing, teaching, and lots more, I am endlessly grateful to Lynn Reid, Associate Editor for BWe Production and incoming Council on Basic Writing Co-Chair.

--BG