Have you ever left a meeting in which you were trying to work with some colleagues on aligning the curriculum for a course that several of you teach, and decided that the best (printable) word to describe a colleague was “difficult?”

Take the plethora of information available online, add the ease of which students can cut-and-paste material, throw in lots of pressure to get good grades, and plagiarism becomes an appealing option to almost any student.

Incorporating material that addresses diversity issues in classes has positive effects on a number of learning outcomes. The success of efforts to make curricula more diverse depends to a large degree on faculty willingness to incorporate these materials because control of the curriculum remains in faculty hands—both collectively, in terms of course and program approval processes, and individually, in terms of daily decisions about what to teach.

Looking for a great way to encourage students to accept responsibility for their learning? Learning contracts may accomplish that goal more effectively than almost any other instructional strategy. True, they aren’t viable when classes are large, and they aren’t likely to work well when students are very dependent learners. But for independent study projects, in small seminars and for more mature learners, they can effectively demonstrate what it means to take charge of one’s learning.

When faculty members receive phone calls from parents about their children’s academic work, the response is often, “Our contract is with the students, not the parents,” says Marjorie Savage, parent program director at the University of Minnesota.

Collegiality—the ability of faculty members to get along with each other and contribute to the collective good—is a key component of success within the department and the higher education institution as a whole. It is largely up to the department chair to promote collegiality, but everyone plays a part. In an email interview, Robert Cipriano, chair of Recreation and Leisure Studies at Southern Connecticut State University, explained the importance of collegiality, strategies for encouraging collegiality, and the role of collegiality in personnel decisions.

I’ve just put the May issue of the newsletter to bed, but I’m still thinking about an essay submitted by Huntly Collins, a journalism prof at La Salle University. Actually what Huntly shared was a much longer essay she’d prepared for her third-year review. I just culled a few prize paragraphs. Despite being a new college teacher, (it’s a second career after a highly successful one as a reporter), Huntly has learned some lessons that still escape others who have been teaching for years. Take this one for example.

Most teachers work to add interest to lecture material in an attempt to keep students engaged. If they aren’t attending, they aren’t listening, and if they aren’t listening, it’s pretty hard to imagine them learning anything from a lecture. But is there a point at which the interesting details are more arresting than the content? And if that’s so, do those kinds of details get in the way of attempts to learn and apply content?

To the harshest critics, today’s students would rather text than talk; prefer social networking sites to socializing with the person sitting next to them; and figure if it can’t be downloaded to their iPod, it’s not worth their time.