Student representation in university decision making: good reasons, a new lens? - Studies in Higher Education - Volume 38, Issue 10The story of this article starts in December 2007 when I realised that I needed to completely rework my PhD literature review. The outcome was a conceptual review of the scholarship on various justifications for student representation in higher education governance and how they relate to different conceptions of 'students'. In 2008 the thesis was examined and in 2010 I presented a paper based on the literature review at the CHER conference in Oslo. It was very well received, but when I submitted the paper to this Journal I was told that there were 'mixed comments' from the peer reviewers and publication was declined. I worked on the paper again taking into account the very useful comments of the reviewers and eventually submitted it four months later to the "emerging scholars manuscript competition" of the International Journal for Leadership in Education ILJE (also a T&F journal) where it won! However, due to local regulations in SA regarding research funding, I could not publish it in ILJE and therefore went back, very cheeky, to SiHE asking them to reconsider in the light of the changes done and the award won. That was in 2011. In January 2012 the article was published in iFirst and now, in December 2013, finally in Vol. 38 Issue 10 of what was all along the preferred journal for this article. In short, this article has been maturing over more than six years and it took seven years from conception to final publication... talk about academic publishing! It is a fantastic article though. Have a read!
