Affilia Winter 2000Gross EDITORIAL In Retrospect

This is my final editorial for Affilia as editor-in-chief. I want to thank the visionary women of the journal’s editorial board for being a constant source of inspiration to me. I am especially grateful to Diane Bernard, who mentored me through difficult decisions. The wise energy of all the women on the editorial board has made producing Affilia a true statement of feminist principles. With our next issue, I would like to welcome Miriam Dinerman as our new editor-in-chief. Miriam brings with her our best wishes for Affilia’s continued success. In thinking about what I have tried to accomplish as editor-in-chief of the journal in the past few years, I found that several themes stand out. The first reflects my interest in bringing knowledge about changes in national and global social values into theory building for practice. The second reflects my hope that Affilia will find ways to stave off the tendency to conform to patriarchal standards for academic respectability and success. And the third reflects the unresolved tensions that I have observed between feminists ’ desires to adhere to feminist prin-ciples and higher education’s penchant to protect its patriar-chal modes of doing things. I believe that each theme is of con-sequence for social workers, whose education and credentials and therefore professional possibilities are defined by accredi-tation and university institutions. The most significant social change of the past four decades has been family innovation—in roles, status, functions, and relationships. Observing the effects of changes in families has been an intellectually rich and rewarding experience for me because such change is directly related to the tidal political