“Education,” wrote William Butler Yeats, “is not filling a bucket but lighting a fire.” Some of the best fire starters on the globe are on the faculty of the College of Arts & Sciences. This issue of Global Thinking is all about them.

We feature three of our professors, from three different Webster campuses, who recently received Webster’s prestigious and lucrative Kemper Award for excellence in teaching: Kelly-Kate Pease of St. Louis, Peter van Krieken of the Netherlands, and Royce Calhoun of San Antonio. Colleagues and students alike speak eloquently about their pedagogical—and pyrotechnic—virtues.

We also interview Mary Preuss, a new assistant professor in the Department of Biological Sciences. Mary has wasted no time inflaming students with her own enthusiasm for plant biology. This is not her first experience with Webster students; while completing a post-doctoral fellowship at St. Louis’s Donald Danforth Plant Science Center she mentored interns from Webster.

Great teaching by Webster faculty ignited Ann Walsh Bradley four decades ago. Today she is the Honorable Justice Ann Walsh Bradley of the Supreme Court of Wisconsin and our most recent Outstanding Alumna award winner. Read about her path to success in this issue.

In addition, you can read about our newest Global M.A. in International Relations students. They give Global Thinking their perspective on the innovative globe-trotting degree program they have undertaken.

Great teaching extends beyond the classroom. It also takes place in our many seminars, colloquia, and conferences, events such as this fall’s Nuclear Non-Proliferation Seminar sponsored by our Vienna campus, our Thailand campus’s public forum, “Back to the Future: Cold Wars and Great Power Conflicts in Asia,” the 15th International Humanitarian Conference at the Geneva campus, and The Human Right to Food & Water Conference, held at the St. Louis campus as part of the Year of International Human Rights 2009-10: The Right to Food & Water. Check out the links to learn more about these events.

Let this issue of Global Thinking light your fire!

David Carl Wilson