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The dedication of the University of Kentucky to excellence in the education of its undergraduate students is nowhere more evident than in the results of their creativity that are published each year in Kaleidoscope. This is the fourth volume, and it continues to give me great joy as well as pride to read the superb contributions of our students.

The sensitive history of the Negro Baseball Leagues, the brilliant research of our Beckman Scholars, the beautiful and insightful poetry, the clear scholarship of the analyses of Nietzsche, Nosferatu, and The Jew of Malta, and the stunning production of Madama Butterfly are testimony to the breadth and depth of the scholarly creativity of UK's undergraduates. I offer the authors my sincere congratulations.

UK's dedication to excellence in undergraduate education has taken further concrete form this year with the creation of the Chellgren Center for Undergraduate Excellence (www.uky.edu/chellgrencenter). The Center brings together many of the outstanding undergraduate programs at the University, including the Discovery Seminar Program, the Honors Program, eUreKa!, the Gaines Center, the Living-Learning Communities, study abroad, the office of external scholarships, and the intercollegiate debate program. This union results in vastly increased synergy among the pro-grams and enhanced support for undergraduates in all disciplines. The program directors now meet frequently to share their experiences and coordinate their activities, resulting in increased benefits for all of their students.

As I have said in previous years, the success of our students is a direct result of the dedication of their faculty mentors. It has been said that if the student does not exceed the teacher, the teacher has failed. Time and again I have found our professors to take the greatest pride and pleasure in the creative and professional achievements of their students. We are fortunate at UK to have such caring, supportive faculty members, and I salute them.

Please join me in recognizing the many young women and men whose outstanding works are published in this issue of Kaleidoscope. These students are but a few of the thousands of highly creative and productive undergraduate scholars who are active at UK. Together they are making contributions to the enhancement of knowledge and are being recognized nationally and internationally through their performances, publications, and productions. Once again it is clear that UK students are the equal of those at any other university.