Every spring the University of Wisconsin System sponsors a conference on teaching and learning. Faculty from all over the state gather to compare notes and talk with invited guests about their common calling. Organized by the Office of Professional and Instructional Development (OPID), it's always a good conference. This year it was especially good. This year OPID invited ten faculty from all over the country who've participated in the Carnegie Scholars program, as well as Pat Hutchings, senior scholar at Carnegie, for the keynote. What made the conference excellent had little to do with name recognition or any aura of prestige; rather, it derived from a solid recognition of common ground and the real possibilities of progress in the endless challenge of teaching better. Uniformly, the Carnegie Scholars were humble and enthusiastic about what they'd been doing and what they'd learned about themselves and teaching. Uniformly, it was the value and interest of the questions about teaching and learning that held center stage.

Pat Hutchings' keynote, "From Seat of the Pants to the Shoulders of Giants: Advancing the Practice and Profession of Teaching," foreshadowed this focus. In it she quickly spelled out what the endlessly debated "scholarship of teaching" is not--not new, not just to improve one's own teaching, not dependent on a single method, not a publications engine, and not all figured out. The scholarship of teaching begins with questions, and (modeling good pedagogy) Hutchings tossed them to the audience and suggested they talk with their neighbors about them. The first questions were, "What aspect of your students' learning do you puzzle over, wish you knew more about, worry about?" and "Why is your question important?" After pausing for us to think and talk about those, she offered two more: "What kinds of evidence would you need to answer your questions?" and "What strategies could you use to get that evidence?" From that point on, this was a working conference, a conversation, a forum.

Good questions form the theme of this issue of the Forum. From Linc. Fisch's AD REM . . . column which bears the name, to Julie Stout's report on how she completely overhauled her course in neuropsychology, questions well asked form the spine of this issue. "How can I get students to come to class prepared so that we can have good discussions?" Nancy Barrineau asks. And for her an answer lies in summary note cards. "How ought we to look at ourselves as teachers today?" asks Virginia Lee. "How has the shifting conceptualization of the teacher reflected our deepening understanding of teaching and learning?"

"What is the core issue, the big stumbling block between enthusiasm, passion, mastery of one's subject and great teaching?" is the question Craig Nelson takes up in his CARNEGIE CHRONICLE.

All these good questions compel me to pose one of my own: "Why are good questions almost always more interesting than eloquent or correct answers?" My answer is that they leave a place for me; they welcome me into the journey. They assure me that I am not left out, that my interest in the question, my recognition of it as a good question, already proves me worthy and makes me part of the inquiry. I am not carrying someone else's shoes. I am a colleague in an enterprise that's much bigger and more important than all of us. Good questions humble and exalt simultaneously. In the best possible way, they help us know our place.

And so, for the summer and the year to come, I wish us all "good questions."