By now you may have heard that President Simmons has requested that a Freshman Seminar Course (FSC) be implemented at LU by the fall of 2012. The FSC Implementation Committee met for the first time on Friday and quickly organized into five sub-committees: curriculum design and structure; marketing, advertising, and web presence; open house, orientation, and recruitment; assessment; and campus relations. The Implementation Committee of twenty-two members, led by Dr. Oney Fitzpatrick, is committed to creating a freshmen year course that provides student with the skills that will increase their satisfaction with the college experience while improving our retention and graduation rates. As we know, the attrition issue is everyone's responsibility at LU and the Implementation Committee is looking for assistance from anyone who is interested in student success. We will continue to update you on the progress of this initiative. Please save the dates of November 10 and 11 for the visit of Dr. Diane Halpern. She will deliver two interactive workshops designed to help you move to the next level as an instructor. Her critical thinking session will prepare you for the new requirements of the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board requiring assessment of this essential skill. In addition, Dr. Halpern will deliver a session on the science of learning designed to solidify the link between you and your students. Now that we are in week nine of your learner-centered class, your students should be able to understand the facts and principles and interpret the material as well as be able to solve problems and apply concepts and principles to new situations. They should also be able to recognize unstated assumptions or logical fallacies and have the ability to distinguish between facts and inferences. They should be able to integrate learning from different areas and solve problems by creative and critical thinking and their judgement and assessment skills should be well developed. The preceding statements are built using Bloom's Taxonomy. Your learning outcomes should be very similar to these statements infused with your disciplinary expectations. Do your students constantly prod you to reveal your political ideology? Do they say that you are biased? Billie Hara wrote an interesting op-ed piece on this topic for Inside Higher Ed that we encourage you to read.