Congratulations to Dr. James Westgate, Lamar University professor of geology, who received the 2011 Piper Professor for superior teaching award. Dr. Westgate credits his success to using active learning methods in his classrooms. He said, "I think one of the most significant aspects of being given the award is that it acknowledges my philosophy about the importance of students learning through doing, whether that means excavating 40 million-year-old fossils in the Utah desert, or canoeing through Neches River cypress swamps." The Piper Professor Program recognizes the best college teachers in Texas. Participation is by invitation only and nominations are made by the president of each college in Texas. The selection criteria focuses on nominees who have demonstrated an unusual dedication to the profession of teaching and for those that inspire respect and admiration in their colleagues. LU is very proud of Dr. Westgate for being recognized as one of the best college teachers for 2011. There are just 10 days left to prepare an application for the cohort 3 class of ACES Fellows. If you were unable to attend an information session but would like to learn more about the evaluation process, please contact the CT+LE immediately. With all of the recent advances in cognitive and neural sciences, you would think that we would be redesigning education using this new information. Most experts, like Marc Hauser, think that the gap between what we know about the mind/brain and teaching and design of education has not narrowed and he places most of the blame on the way scientists package their results. In addition it may be a problem of focus. Most of the work in the mind/brain field has been on discovering universal truths rather than about individual differences that could unlock the cognitive puzzle. Branton Shearer's book MI at 25: Assessing the Impact and Future of Multiple Intelligences for Teaching and Learning includes a discussion on this and many other interesting topics and is available from the Gray Library (LB 1062 M497).