If you do a search on the Internet, we are willing to bet that the word retention would rank fairly high in the higher education sector. Figuring out ways to stem the attrition rate has become an obsession at most institutions of higher education. The good news is that it has sparked an increase in empirical research and what we are learning is very applicable. There is still time to attend the workshop on student retention that is set for today at 1:30 PM in the CT+LE Commons area. Come and learn about successful intervention strategies that you can use in your classroom or online environment. Registration is appreciated but not required. Classroom design has also become a hot topic for researchers who are looking to create the best environment for student learning. A number of faculty who teach educational technology courses in the Department of Educational Leadership will be showcasing student-centered learning spaces. The event, An Overview of Technology-Enabled 21st Century Learning Spaces, will be held at 1:30 PM on Thursday, April 26 in Landes Auditorium. David Jaffee has written a terrific op-ed piece on the detrimental effect that telling your students to study for the exam can have on their academic progress. He writes, "If there is one student attitude that most all faculty bemoan, it is instrumentalism. This is the view that you go to college to get a degree to get a job to make money to be happy. Similarly, you take this course to meet this requirement, and you do coursework and read the material to pass the course to graduate to get the degree. Everything is a means to an end. Nothing is an end in itself. There is no higher purpose. When we tell students to study for the exam or, more to the point, to study so that they can do well on the exam, we powerfully reinforce that way of thinking. While faculty consistently complain about instrumentalism, our behavior and the entire system encourages and facilitates it." Steven J. Corbett encourages us to shake up our lecture in his op-ed piece. "As a teacher of writing, and as a proponent of active learning, I have always disdained the traditional lecture. Yet, each term, for each course that I teach — from freshman "basic writing" courses, to graduate courses in teaching (and learning) college writing — I have always included a somewhat traditional introductory lecture on rhetoric. Sure, I give it all I’ve got in order to not only provide students the information I want them to use in their analytical work (content), but also to enact a living model of delivery (form) — what the greatest of the Greek orators, Demosthenes, declared the most important part of any speech. But this term I decided to shake things up a bit. I wondered what would happen if I turned over the reins of my prized rhetoric-lecture thoroughbred over to the hands and minds of the students to ride (deliver)," writes Corbett.