Welcome to the McGill Reporter's annual teaching supplement.This special section gives us an opportunity each year to fête the University's most recent teaching award winners. As a former university student, it also provides me with the opportunity to exact a little revenge -- I get to assign these teachers some homework.

The idea is to pick the brains of prize-winning pedagogues on the subject of teaching. We asked them to answer a pair of queries this year, namely:

1) What is the greatest challenge associated with teaching at the university level?

2) What, in your opinion, are the hallmarks of good teaching?

I think you'll agree their replies are well worth reading.

The supplement also includes some comments from the beneficiaries of good teaching -- students. We asked several notable McGill graduates, including author and scientist Steve Pinker and astronaut Julie Payette, who their favourite McGill teachers were.

We've also included a story about a recent survey of arts professors that touches on the effect that years of budget cuts have had on their ability to teach their courses. And we shine the spotlight on electrical and computer engineering professor Harry Leib, the recent recipient of a national teaching prize.

Daniel McCabe