Many of you will remember the visit of Dr. Bob Noyd during the Spring 2011 semester. He presented three outstanding workshops that were very well attended by you. Bob invited me to participate in the U.S. Air Force Academy's course design workshop and that is where I am this week. The workshop is held about three hours from the USAFA campus. We are in Leadville, Colorado which is over 10,000 feet in the Rocky Mountains. The location is picture perfect although it makes breathing a little difficult. Yesterday was the kickoff of the workshop. There are a little less than 20 faculty who proposed and were selected to participate. The first day of work was focused on understanding student factors. The overarching message was remembering to design your course for the students you actually have rather than for the students you think you have. We had a great discussion about each of the faculty's dream ideas about their impact on their students. This workshop is very focused on learning-centered course goals. I even got to see Bob's ropes exercise again and it still is very effective. Today we are focusing on summative assessment techniques. Alignment with the course objectives seems to be the key and is often the point that faculty forget as they design their course.We will be bringing this all back to Beaumont so get ready for a busy fall semester.