Dear Readers,

Every issue of Modeling and Simulation Magazine includes the words “Modeling & Simulation Magazine is the general interest publication provided to the membership of The Society for Modeling and Simulation International, Inc. (formerly The Society for Computer Simulation). We welcome contributions from all members of the modeling and simulation community.”

Nothing surprising there. Surely every magazine and technical journal is desirous of hearing from the community it serves. What is surprising however, at least for myself, is the relatively small amount of correspondence that comes to my attention from our readers about the issues and subjects within the scope of M&S Magazine. The articles and columns featured in each issue are the backbone of the magazine. They are meant to be informative to a broad population of M&S professionals and students. The articles are not highly technical by design. The columns reflect the personal opinions of the regular and intermittent contributors about issues which directly impact the M&S community.

While unsolicited articles are of course welcome, the regional and national conferences sponsored by SCS are a plentiful source of papers on a wide range of topics. In contrast, finding authors for columns has proven a greater challenge. This is unfortunate because the columns are really a wide open forum for anyone in the simulation community to express their thoughts about the past, present and future directions of the simulation field. From college students interested in sharing their thoughts on simulation related curricula or research endeavors to senior members with years of experience and tangible contributions in the field, I hope all who are reading this will accept my invitation to author a column.

The goal is to provoke further dialog. Send your thoughts to the editorial staff and sit back and wait for someone to respond. I will start the ball rolling in the next issue with my take on simulation education in this column.

Harold Klee
Editor in Chief