Bob Diamond's recent national survey of attitudes toward the relative importance of teaching and research supports this conclusion. The experiences of Rick Battistoni, Zelda Gamson, Cheryl Keen, and Maryellen Weimer, speakers at the AAHE National Conference in Chicago, support it as well. All of them in one way or another focused on student-centered, learner-centered, or active learning_all terms that emphasize the importance of putting learning and the demands and possibilities of learning center stage. The stage has always been a powerful place. In that arena of attention, we recognize different depths in the ordinary drama of our lives. Lavon Gappa-Levi writes in this issue how faculty and teaching assistants at Florida State University use drama to understand and improve their teaching. Ironically, to get close and see clearly, we often need distance. Case studies, like drama, put us at this close remove. Brenda Manning's report on her experiences in case writing reminds skeptics that clear principles of good instructional design tumble out of vigorous engagement with the real as much as they evolve from the logic of theory or the leisure of reflection.

But if students rightfully command our attention as teachers, which students shall we teach and what shall we teach them? Gail Platt argues in her viewpoint piece on remediation that we must teach the students we have, and we must teach them first whatever it is they need to know.

Finally, instead of the periodic invitation to submit manuscripts, I've borrowed a few thoughts from Pat Cross on the value to one's own thinking of the discipline of writing. And I've borrowed from a forthcoming book by Cross and her colleague, Mimi Steadman, some questions to help you frame questions about your own teaching with your own students. I urge you to make the investigation of your own teaching an active part of your intellectual life. I am convinced that ultimately we teach ourselves the things we need to know through a strange amalgam of recognition, discovery, confession and practice. Writing assists and tempers all of these.

And before you hit the beach this summer, "surf the net" and visit the Forum's home page. Very soon The National Teaching and Learning Forum will appear in an online version in addition to its paper incarnation. Samples of one form of the new version_the full-graphic PDF files_are already there for viewing. We also plan an HTML version.

The National Teaching and Learning Forum home page, however, won't just be a place to pick up fresh copies of the newsletter. It will include a discussion forum where faculty_all of you_can carry on the discussions about teaching and learning you most want to have. We have a number of other exciting plans for this Internet site; so I hope you'll visit and keep watching for what's coming.

To the many of you who've asked: Thankfully, my mother's health is much improved.

Have a wonderful summer.