Perspective, point of view, attitude. Mental preconditions control a great deal in the teaching-learning dynamic. The more faculty become aware of them, the more quickly they become allies rather than obstacles in teaching. Indeed, the more calls to greater awareness we hear--most of them apt in some way or other--the more danger I often feel that I will become deaf to them, sinking firmly into "the good old ways," that always worked before. Perhaps that's because many such appeals appear not to value what we already know. They seem to ask us to take on a whole new way of looking at things. The appeals to greater or different awareness in this issue of the Forum don't make that mistake. These appeals only ask us to shift in our chair or walk across the room or realize that, often without realizing it, we already understand better than we knew.

Jim Curtis's article on the value of adding an anthropological perspective to pedagogical thinking (alongside the psychological, currently dominant) doesn't ask much, just that we more fully utilize the realities we see around us in student lives in order to teach them more effectively. Similarly, Bunmi Olatunji and Donna Desforges's advocacy of collaborative faculty-student research at the undergraduate level may seem counter-intuitive and even reductive at first blush, but the authors know what they're describing isn't as easy as one-two-three. But their approach addresses some important learning needs we do know students have which often aren't being met. Researching with undergraduate students is a new perspective for most of us, but it offers possibilities.

Last year the Forum ran two supplements devoted to the new projects being undertaken by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Having shown the interrelatedness of those programs and the questions being asked, we must wait a bit to see how the answers develop. While we wait, the Forum will track and report on developments of special interest to our readers. Brian Coppola's essay on "the rigged game" of promotion and tenure and how present and future faculty may prevail in it by fostering an "unrigged" understanding of the rules is the first of these smaller CARNEGIE CHRONICLES.

Laura Border's DEVELOPER'S DIARY seems to be about the difference between students talking with each other online and talking in a "real" classroom, and in a way it is. On a different level, however, she's talking about considering the relevance of a very different perspective on student (and faculty) behavior. Are students silent and passive because they're stubborn, stupid, willfully obstinate? Or could they somehow have "learned" to act helpless in the presence of someone else who's supposed to have all the answers and carry the ball in these face-to-face situations? If there's some "learned helplessness" at play, Border has some suggestions for overcoming it.

Do we have enough people focused on the importance of such insights? Probably not, which is why the video "Faculty Development: Who Needs It?" deserves a brief review. As producer Lynn Sorenson says, the video isn't intended for home-alone viewing; it's a tool for helping those who understand explain to those who may not, how beneficial, how deserving of attention and respect instructional and faculty development can be.

Finally, last, but never least, Linc. Fisch offers another of his practical approaches to some of the vexing problems that ever enter a teacher's life. This time he focuses on getting the group back together. He makes it sound easy, but we know the truth. Nothing is, but many good things are possible . . . as all the authors in this issue affirm.