NIRSA is undertaking a major effort to synthesize what the current body of evidence allows professionals to say about the impact of campus recreation.
NIRSA’s 2014 Benefits of Campus Recreation report gave the profession a shared evidence base for demonstrating the value of campus recreation. That report was made possible by a national dataset that is no longer available. At the same time, the body of research examining campus recreation and student outcomes has expanded substantially over the past decade.
Rather than attempting to recreate a single national study, NIRSA is taking a new approach: bringing together researchers with expertise across seven areas of impact to synthesize what the collective body of evidence now tells us.
The Editor will serve as the editorial lead for the collection as a whole, working in partnership with the selected researchers.
About the Project
Through a separate Call for Researchers, NIRSA will commission individuals or teams to develop seven focused research snapshots examining:
- Health & Wellbeing
- Leadership & Skill Development
- Student Employment & Career Preparation
- Belonging & Social Connection
- Campus Experience & Engagement
- Academic Success & Retention
- Institutional Value
Each research team will critically synthesize the existing evidence within its area, identifying well-supported findings, limitations, gaps, and areas where evidence is emerging or mixed. Together, these snapshots will form the foundation of a new comprehensive NIRSA report on the impact and value of campus recreation.
NIRSA is seeking an Editor to help guide this work from a collection of individual research syntheses into a coherent, credible, and accessible resource for the campus recreation profession.
Eligibility
The editor(s) must be a current NIRSA member. The ideal Editor will demonstrate:
- Strong understanding of research design, evidence synthesis, and interpretation of scholarly research
- Experience reviewing, editing, synthesizing, or translating scholarly work
- Excellent writing, editing, and interpersonal communication skills
- Strong ability to identify patterns and connections across multiple bodies of work and create coherence from contributions developed by different authors
- Ability to communicate research findings accurately and accessibly to practitioner audiences
- Strong understanding of professional practice in campus recreation, student affairs, higher education, or a closely related field
- Ability to provide substantive feedback to researchers while respecting their subject-matter expertise and authorship
- Strong project management skills, with the ability to manage multiple interconnected project components toward shared deadlines
- Comfort working collaboratively with multiple researchers and NIRSA staff toward a shared final product
An advanced research degree may be valuable, but the strongest candidate will be distinguished by the ability to bridge scholarship and practice, rather than by academic credentials alone.
Responsibilities
Shape the collection
- Work with NIRSA to refine the overall editorial framework, finalize parameters and timeline, and draft a common template for the seven research snapshots before researchers begin their work
- Help establish guidance that creates consistency across independently authored papers while allowing appropriate variation across research areas
- Collaborate with NIRSA staff to evaluate researcher applications and select researchers for each snapshot
Guide researchers and the review process
- Participate in the researcher orientation/kickoff and help establish shared expectations for rigor, synthesis, accessibility, and the relationship among the papers
- Serve as an intellectual thought partner to researchers as questions of scope, interpretation, overlap, or presentation arise
- Review draft manuscripts with particular attention to whether conclusions appropriately reflect the evidence presented, as well as the overall goals of the project
- Provide substantive editorial feedback focused on synthesis, clarity, coherence, and usefulness rather than copyediting alone
- Facilitate or guide cross-author discussion when evidence or concepts span multiple impact areas
Synthesize and integrate the collection
- Read across all seven research snapshots to identify recurring findings, important distinctions, relationships among areas, tensions in the evidence, and larger themes that may not be visible within any single paper
- Help determine where overlapping evidence is best situated, cross-referenced, or addressed at the collection level, preserving meaningful complexity rather than forcing interconnected outcomes into artificial categories
- Identify and help resolve inconsistencies in terminology, framing, or evidentiary claims that could create confusion across the collection
- Lead development of the overarching synthesis that connects the seven research areas, including major cross-cutting conclusions, limitations of the overall evidence base, and priorities for future research
- Help shape the organization and narrative of the comprehensive report so it functions as an integrated resource rather than a compilation of seven independent papers
Translate research for practice
- Ensure the collection is academically credible while remaining clear and accessible to a broad NIRSA practitioner audience
- Help researchers communicate technical concepts, methodological limitations, and levels of evidence without oversimplifying or overstating findings
- Keep attention on what practitioners most need to understand: what the evidence supports, what it suggests, what remains unknown, and how findings can be responsibly used
- Work with NIRSA to consider how the completed research can reach and serve the profession beyond the comprehensive report, identifying opportunities for further dissemination, translation, or practitioner-facing resources
- Contribute ideas about audiences, formats, messages, and applications that could make the findings more useful and actionable
Deliverables
The Editor will be expected to:
- Collaborate with NIRSA on the common framework and author guidance for the seven research snapshots
- Serve as the primary point of contact and project lead for the research synthesis process, coordinating participating researchers, maintaining the project timeline, tracking progress toward key milestones, and proactively following up to keep the work on schedule
- Participate in project kickoff and key researcher meetings
- Conduct substantive review of draft research snapshots and provide actionable editorial feedback
- Lead or facilitate review of connections and overlap across the seven papers
- Review revised/final manuscripts for coherence across the collection
- Develop an overarching synthesis of the seven research areas for inclusion in the comprehensive report
- Provide final recommendations regarding organization, framing, cross-referencing, and practitioner translation of the collection
- Participate in a webinar or other dissemination activity highlighting the completed work
Term Length
Anticipated to span from October 2026-December 2027; the project timeline and term length may change, based on project needs.
Benefits of Volunteering
A $5,000 stipend will be provided to the Editor at the completion of the project.
In the case that two individuals wish to act as co-editors, they must designate a primary contact. The stipend will be provided to the primary contact for distribution at the primary contact’s discretion.