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This is the fourth time I've read the statements of and written about the winners of the Association of American Colleges and Universities' K. Patricia Cross Future Leaders award. It's a privilege to get to know these young people and heartening to know that Pat Cross, professor emerita at the University of California, Berkeley, has successors who are worthy of an award bearing her name.
The award is a vote of confidence in the future—a confidence that's characteristic of Pat, whose intellectual and personal vigor in her eighties means she still has a lively interest in how that future will shape up. And she has already done her part to shape it, both through this award and through ground-breaking scholarship throughout her long and productive career on teaching, classroom assessment, adult students, and community colleges.
As I look at the personal statements of the award winners, I see a lot of similarities among them and between this and prior groups—due in part, I'm sure, to the award criteria, which stress among other things strong commitments to teaching and learning; academic and civic responsibility; and the development of others as leaders, scholars, and citizens. At the same time, no two award winners are alike. Not only do their disciplines differ—so too do their academic backgrounds, universities, personal histories, and voices.
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