Today’s Academic Minute features McGill University's Dr. Julio Martinez-Trujillo who shares his thoughts on how our brains allow us to focus on more than one thing at a time. His findings are very interesting as we have also been working on research geared towards helping students to learn how to focus their attention, especially as it relates to test-taking. His focus on multitasking brings to mind the recent conversations we had with Dr. Christy Price, who visited LU in March. She noted that many psychologists are now using the term switch tasking to refer to our ability to handle more than one task at the same time. In Texas, which has the country’s second-largest Latino population, experts say that closing the gap in college graduation rates between Latinos and Anglos will be critical to ensuring that the state has an educated workforce in the next 20 years. A report recently released by Excelencia in Education, a national nonprofit that promotes policies aimed at improving Latino achievement in higher education, shows that approximately 17 percent of Latino adults in Texas have an associate's degree or higher, compared with 34 percent of all Texas adults. The report notes that the graduation rate for Latino college students in Texas is about 10 percentage points lower than that of white students. The report also contains examples of what the authors feel will help Latinos to graduate. Florida's colleges are on high alert in the battle against what they fear is a growing number of tech-savvy cheaters. Smartphones and social networking have made cheating easier and more widespread than ever, some say. And experts add that if schools don't crack down on the dishonesty now, there could be long-term consequences for society. "Do you want to drive over a bridge designed by an engineer who cheated his way through school?" asked Jen Day Shaw, dean of students at the University of Florida. "Do you want to be operated on by a surgeon who cheats? If the students don't learn honesty and good values here, what are they going to do in the real world?" TurnItIn recently presented a webinar on this very topic. As we approach our final exam period, you might want to take half an hour to listen to the presentation. They are also offering a webinar on Thursday, April 12 at noon on the topic of Teaching Critical Thinking with Student Engagement. For those interested in teaching the University Success Seminar, or LMAR 1101, there will be three informational meetings during the month of April. The dates and times include April 13 at 2:00 PM, April 23 at 12:30 PM, and April 27 at 2:00 PM. All of the sessions will take place in 622 MJGL and no registration is required.