Higher Learning 2025: Johns Hopkins University Press

Set to celebrate its sesquicentennial in 2028, Johns Hopkins University Press was founded as the Johns Hopkins Publication Agency in 1878, when it published the first issue of the American Journal of Mathematics, a periodical it continues to publish today. Led by executive director Barbara Kline Pope, the press is one of the world’s largest university presses, with a diverse range of scholarly content–related products and services, including a book distribution division, Hopkins Fulfillment Services, and Project MUSE, a massive online collection of 800 journals and 100,000 books from 400 publishers available to millions of readers worldwide.

The mission of the press, says Pope, is “to bring the benefits of discovery to the world” by connecting people with trusted knowledge from global researchers, scholars, and educators. The press annually publishes about 130 new books in the areas of health and wellness, higher education, public health and health policy, the life sciences, American history and current events, literary studies, and the history of science, technology, and medicine. Hopkins Press is proud to be the leading university press publisher of books on higher education, which are among the bestselling and most discussed in the field, the press says, including books on shifts in the higher education landscape and climate change, guides to topics such as academic freedom and campus diversity, and resources for faculty and administrators. Recent highlights include Mindset Matters by Daniel R. Porterfield and Failing Our Future by Joshua R. Eyler.

This year’s #StepUP theme for press week is reflected in Johns Hopkins University Press’s list of 2024 publications. The recently released Teaching with AI by José Antonio Bowen and C. Edward Watson is an essential resource for teachers on adapting to the new era of AI-driven learning. And the forthcoming book Learning with AI by Joan Monahan Watson, written with José Antonio Bowen and C. Edward Watson, will offer practical guidance for K–12 teachers on integrating AI tools into the classroom.

The press also embraces the #StepUP theme in its efforts to champion diverse voices. It publishes groundbreaking books and scholarship on LGBTQIA+ issues, including popular titles for general readers such as math educator, drag queen, and TikTok star Kyne Santos’s Math in Drag and The Conversation on Gender Diversity edited by Jules Gill-Peterson. The press’s recent books on diversity in higher education include The Resilient University by Freeman A. Hrabowski III, Leading from the Margins by Mary Dana Hinton, and Transforming Hispanic-Serving Institutions for Equity and Justice by Gina Ann Garcia.

There’s a bounty of new titles coming from the press in 2025. Highlights on the spring 2025 list include former New York City jails chief medical officer Homer Venters’s Outbreak Behind Bars, a follow-up to Life and Death in Rikers Island that examines “the public health disaster in American prisons and jails.” Also on the spring list is science journalist Mindy Weisberger’s Rise of the Zombie Bugs, which uncovers a world of sinister parasites that can turn cicadas, spiders, and other invertebrates into the “walking dead.” Finally, Peter V. Rabins returns with a second edition of Is It Alzheimer’s?, a companion book to his classic, bestselling guide to Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, The 36-Hour Day, coauthored with Nancy L. Mace.

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