It is revealed by understanding, listening, empathy, direct guidance, respect and caring for students' well-being. Seeing students develop, and meeting them in their later lives, can be an outstanding experience. Technology and information about the teaching-learning process are improving learning. Under such conditions, teaching and learning are interactive and exciting events, never a chore or a bore. Faculty and students are influenced by and can influence the system.
Several challenges exist.
Our curriculum plans must take into account the expansion of knowledge in psychology and other disciplines. We must consider how to cover the immense growth of information, whether to seek depth or breadth, whether to include the knowledge bases of other disciplines and how much of the more sophisticated statistics is enough to require. Funding resources are limited yet pressure for admissions remains. Then there are the issues of whether our graduates are prepared for the job market and whether positions will be available for them. Perhaps we need to more carefully match graduate training to society's needs, which, of course, change over time.