ACADEMIC HALLMARKS

If you want to live 15 to 20 billion years and travel to the ends of the universe, a good place to start is in the data banks at Academic Hallmarks in Durango, Colorado. Why there? Those date banks contain 90,000 questions that range across the spectrum of human knowledge. Anyone who could answer the great majority of those 90,000 questions correctly would be on the way to having "traveled" to the ends of the universe and would have "lived" through a fair portion of the knowledge that human-kind has amassed, from most of the 15 to 20 billion years that the universe has been around and from the history of Earth and Mankind.

Fantasy? Not at all. A selective study of cosmology can take one back to the founding of the universe and, also, to the farthest reaches of space, each according to the limits of present knowledge and understanding. A broad knowledge of the body of knowledge that humans being have brought together takes one back through Earth history to its beginnings and forward to the present. A person need not know "all that could, theoretically, be known" to complete this journey. However, the average person in an average life-time can learn enough of cosmology and of world history-including human history-to successfully qualify: She or he will have lived 15 to 20 billion years and will have traveled to the presently known ends of the universe.

Durango, Colorado, is not exactly where you might expect to find one of the world's most exciting and innovative education companies. Durango is a small town. It is an "out-of-the-way" place, in spite of the fact that it is near the world-famous Mesa Verde National Park, where ancient people, the Anasazi, built complex rock and mortar cliff dwellings. It also is situated near the equally famous San Juan Mountains, some of the most beautiful mountains in the world, mountains which are widely known at the "American Alps." Durango is one of the few "doorsteps" into those mountains.

Durango has a narrow-gauge railroad that winds its way into the San Juan Mountains to the former mining town of Silverton, and back. Each summer over 100,000 tourists from all over the world board the train for the scenic journey into the region's colorful past. The narrow canyon of the Animas River provides a tenuous place for most of the roadbed of this small railroad. The railroad made it possible to bring the mined ores out of the mountains and down to Durango for processing.

There is a fine little (about 4,500 students) college in Durango. The college, in spite of the fact that it has an unusual name-Fort Lewis College, has become nationally known has an inexpensive, high quality liberal arts college. The college also, because it was once a school for Native Americans, offers free tuition to Native American students. Further, as part of the liberal arts studies, the college has a Southwest Studies program.

Academic Hallmarks is the name of the educational company that was "born" and that flourishes in Durango. The company is owned and operated by Bill Brown and Bob Sauer. The company's logo is The Great Auk, a bird that was hunted to extinction many decades ago. The Great Auk seems, at least on the surface, to be a strange mascot for such a lively, growing company. Perhaps it was chosen to remind humans what the consequences of ignorance can be-in this case, human ignorance led to the extinction of a harmless, rather whimsical looking species. This logo may well show what the essence of education can, and should, be.

There are over 100,000 questions (and "correct" answers) in the files of Academic Hallmarks. That number grows each year by several thousand. What is Academic Hallmarks? It is a company that is devoted to the encouraging knowledge acquisition and knowledge application in schools around the world. It does this in many ways; one of the major ways is by furnishing material for "Knowledge Master(" Open competitions.

The competition process begins when a school administrator or teachers contacts the Academic Hallmarks office. Information about the company and its products, along with a sample diskette or CD (depending on the computer system the school will be using), is sent out (usually the day the request is received). That's when the fun begins for students, for the teachers and for the Academic Hallmark staff.

Academic Hallmarks is the brainchild of Bill Brown. Bill and his partner, Bob Sauer, have built the company from an idea and a few questions gleaned from local college professors and high school teachers into the premier, if not only, company of its kind. The company is located in Durango, Colorado, a little town with a big reputation for tourism, since the town is located near the beautiful San Juan Mountains, Mesa Verde National Park, the Four Corners Monument, and since Durango is world famous for its Durango/Silverton Narrow Gauge Railway.