I was talking to the troops, a windy talk about excellence and performance.

But he said that such diversity would not come at the expense of caring about academic excellence.

That's why it's been practically impossible ever since to survive the day without hearing somebody talk about "excellence."

The survey included questions about academic excellence, spiritual formation, and cultural engagement.

For let us be quite clear, we are not talking about genuine excellence here.

"Master," I asked innocently, "why would followers of a war god even care about academic excellence?"

Professional sports are all about individual excellence, not activist agendas.

"The tape was about excellence, and we don't want to depict that image, even to ourselves," he said.

This is all about excellence, but excellence must stand on its own two feet rather than simply being free floating intelligence.

The recent flurry of changes, he said, is "driven mainly by the growing national concern about academic excellence."