Academe Today: Chronicle Archives

A Guide to the May 24, 1996, Issue
of The Chronicle of Higher Education

Items relevant to more than one category may appear more than once in this guide. To read the complete text of the article, click on the highlighted words.

INTERNATIONAL

IN CANADA, ANGER AND MISTRUST
The political-science department at the University of British Columbia is still divided by an outside report that describes it as racist and sexist.

IN THE UNITED STATES, PORTABLE CREDENTIALS
Educators are trying to develop uniform standards for professional-training programs, so that academic degrees will be accepted across international borders.

IN SLOVAKIA, A FIRING CAUSES CONTROVERSY
Educators are protesting the dismissal of Alena Brunovska, the director of the respected Academia Istropolitana.

IN BRITAIN, "ELEMENTARY" SCIENCE
A semester-abroad program in London shows students how Sherlock Holmes, the fictional detective created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, used scientific methods to solve crimes.

ALSO IN BRITAIN, enrollment declines have forced New England College to close its campus in West Sussex.
IN AUSTRIA, an aid group has published a manual describing how outside institutions can help the war-torn University of Sarajevo.
IN HUNGARY, the government plans to consolidate its higher-education system by merging smaller institutions.
IN RUSSIA, Yaroslavl State University is the first institution to receive funds from the philanthropist George Soros to improve its Internet connections.
IN ISRAEL, Binyamin Netanyahu, the Likud Party's candidate for prime minister, says the country's new system for testing high-school students ignores its biblical roots.
IN INDONESIA, soldiers are being questioned about the deaths of six students.
IN NOVA SCOTIA, the provincial government plans to create a consortium of colleges to reduce education expenses.
FOREIGN STUDENTS CAN LEARN about studying at American colleges with a new CD-ROM produced by the United States Information Agency.

RESEARCH & PUBLISHING

URBAN COWBOYS
Scholars at Montana State University are studying how rural communities are affected by the growing number of city refugees in search of country life.

BIRTH OF THE NOVEL
A new book by Margaret Anne Doody, of Vanderbilt University, takes issue with the prevailing view that this literary form started in 18th-century England. She says it dates back 2,000 years.

FEMALE WARBLERS PREFER male birds with big song repertoires, a group of Swedish scientists said last week.
DINOSAUR FOSSILS discovered in the Sahara by University of Chicago scientists indicate that the prehistoric animals evolved differently in Africa than on other continents.
HOT TYPE
- Alan Sokel, a New York University physicist, has revealed that an article he wrote for the journal Social Text -- on the "Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity" -- is a hoax.
72 NEW SCHOLARLY BOOKS, briefly described.
- Nota Bene: The Anatomy of Prejudices, by Elisabeth Young-Bruehl, a professor of general programs at Haverford College. The book is published by Harvard University Press.
159 SCHOLARS and others have been elected as fellows or as foreign honorary members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; all of them are listed in The Chronicle.

PERSONAL & PROFESSIONAL CONCERNS

TERRORISTS AT UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH FLORIDA?
Critics on the campus charge that the institution did too little about alleged links between faculty members and Islamic Jihad, a terrorist organization. Others decry a witch-hunt drawing on anti-Arab bias.

GENDER EQUITY
A federal appeals court has ordered a trial in a lawsuit filed by five male professors over special pay raises given to female faculty members at Virginia Commonwealth University.

THE EVOLUTION OF ENGINEERING
Education and accreditation must change to keep pace with rapid technological developments and with the growing ethical responsibilities of the field, writes Norman R. Augustine, the president of Lockheed Martin Corporation and chairman of the National Academy of Engineering.

UNDERSTANDING HEALTH POLICY
David P. Stevens, an administrator at Case Western Reserve University's medical school, is learning about politics by working for Sen. Nancy L. Kassebaum, a Kansas Republican.

THE WAY OF HAIKU
The American scholar Patricia Donegan and Yoshie Ishibashi, her Japanese collaborator, are publishing an English translation of Chiyo-ni, one of Japan's best-known female poets.

TEMPLE UNIVERSITY HAS FIRED David Bradley, an English professor and winner of a major literature award.
YALE LAW STUDENTS HAVE POSTED photographs of full-time professors to illustrate the lack of faculty diversity.
THE UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON faces strong faculty opposition to a proposed curricular requirement for courses in cultural diversity.
TWO BROWN UNIVERSITY PROFESSORS, an Egyptian and a Jew, are team-teaching a class on Middle Eastern literature.
EMORY UNIVERSITY PROFESSORS hit a home run this spring with a course on the social significance of baseball.
PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY has settled a nine-year legal battle with a gay administrator who said he had been wrongfully fired.
AN ADMINISTRATOR at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University has sued the student newspaper for defamation. Her name accidently appeared in print with a vulgarism.

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

VULNERABLE NETWORKS
Intruders are entering colleges' computer systems with ease, and computer administrators are hard-pressed to do anything about it.

CLEANING UP CYBERSPACE
In final arguments at a court hearing on a new law restricting "indecent" material on the Internet, opponents of the measure said colleges could be prosecuted for posting certain literary and artistic works on line.

FOREIGN STUDENTS CAN LEARN about studying at American colleges with a new CD-ROM produced by the United States Information Agency.
YAROSLAVL STATE UNIVERSITY is the first Russian institution to receive funds from the Hungarian-American philanthropist George Soros to improve its Internet connections.
AN ADELPHI UNIVERSITY STUDENT has been charged with using campus computers to transmit child pornography.
NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY WAS ASKED last week by the Simon Wiesenthal Center to remove from its computers a World-Wide Web page that denies the Holocaust happened.
16 INTERNET MAILING LISTS, 8 software programs, and 9 other Internet resources.

FEDERAL & STATE GOVERNMENTS (U.S.A.)

NEW ACCOUNTABILITY
More state legislatures are linking their higher-education appropriations to whether public colleges and universities achieve such goals as high graduation rates and efficient administration.

GROWING SUPPORT
The National Endowment for the Humanities appears to have gained political backers recently, but the future of the National Endowment for the Arts remains insecure.

THE FUTURE OF NATIONAL SERVICE
AmeriCorps has survived Republican attempts to kill it for the time being, but the program's recruiting has suffered and its long-term stability is in doubt.

PAYING UP
Internal Revenue Service audits are finding that many colleges and universities violate provisions of the tax law concerning unrelated business income and pay for student workers.

MOST PUBLIC-COLLEGE PRESIDENTS in Massachusetts received big pay raises this spring.
TOM COLLINS HAD SOME HARSH WORDS for the Iowa Board of Regents upon his resignation from the board this month.
THE UNIVERSITY SYSTEM OF GEORGIA'S CHANCELLOR has told the state's public colleges to maintain their existing affirmative-action policies in admissions.
AN ILLINOIS COURT'S RULING could prevent students from seeking state remedies against trade schools that defraud them.
A GROUP OF BLACK LAW STUDENTS at the University of Texas at Austin petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court last week to allow them to take part in a key reverse-discrimination suit.
A FEDERAL JUDGE HAS DISMISSED a lawsuit by the U.S. Justice Department that charged Mary Washington College with violating the Americans With Disabilities Act.
THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT SHOULD INCREASE grant programs in agricultural research to maintain the quality of the nation's land-grant universities, according to a report.
THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE has dismissed a complaint that charged New York University with retaliating against a whistle blower.
THE ENERGY DEPARTMENT SAID last week that it would try to extend its five-year contract with the University of California to manage three national laboratories.
THREE NEW FEDERAL REGULATORY ACTIONS.

BUSINESS & PHILANTHROPY

FALLOUT FROM A GIFT
A terminally ill man has sued New York University, charging that his $250,000 donation was not used for the purpose for which it was intended.

SEEKING SOCIAL CHANGE
The Appleseed Foundation, an organization inspired by Ralph Nader, is promoting a new kind of activism and fund raising by alumni of Harvard Law School.

PAYING UP
Internal Revenue Service audits are finding that many colleges and universities violate provisions of the tax law concerning unrelated business income and pay for student workers.

YALE UNIVERSITY HAS RECEIVED a $20-million gift from Robert Bass, whose brother Lee's $20-million gift was returned by the university last year.
THE REV. PAT ROBERTSON PUT UP with some ribbing to spark some giving for Regent University.

STUDENTS

GAINS FOR MINORITY STUDENTS
Latino and Asian-American enrollments at American colleges and universities rose substantially in 1994, while white enrollment fell.

A UTAH JURY HAS CONVICTED an 18-year-old man of setting off a pipe bomb outside a dormitory at Dixie College in 1993.
FIVE STUDENTS DIED in a fraternity-house fire on graduation day at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
HAVERFORD COLLEGE STUDENTS STOLE a statue of the goddess Athena from the Bryn Mawr campus as a prank.
STUDENTS AT THE SCHOOL OF VISUAL ARTS won top honors in the Society of Illustrators' national art competition.
THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS relaxed its commencement dress code to allow an American Indian student to wear native garb to her graduation.
1996 COMMENCEMENTS FEATURED Kermit the Frog at Long Island University's Southampton College and a hoop race at Wellesley College.
FOREIGN STUDENTS CAN LEARN about studying at American colleges with a new CD-ROM produced by the United States Information Agency.
AN ILLINOIS COURT'S RULING could prevent students from seeking state remedies against trade schools that defraud them.

ATHLETICS

A COMPETITIVE COURT
As more college and high-school players enter the professional draft, collegiate sports officials are wondering how they can keep the college game exciting and lucrative.

THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA'S QUARTERBACK, Danny Wuerffel, turned down a scholar-athlete award from Playboy magazine because the publication conflicts with his faith.
A STANFORD UNIVERSITY STUDY suggests that athletes are more prone to psychological problems than other students are.

OPINION & LETTERS

CURATORS AND CONTROVERSY
The conflict over the Library of Congress's exhibit on Sigmund Freud is really a debate about whether the mission of museums should be to please or to provoke, writes Michael S. Roth, assistant director at the Getty Center of the History of Art and the Humanities.

THE EVOLUTION OF ENGINEERING
Education and accreditation must change to keep pace with rapid technological developments and with the growing ethical responsibilities of the field, says Norman R. Augustine, the president of Lockheed Martin Corporation and chairman of the National Academy of Engineering.

THE NEED FOR DIVERSE PERSPECTIVES
Student bodies with lopsided racial composition limit the scope and substance of debate in the classroom, writes Christopher MacGregor Scribner, an adjunct professor of history at Tennessee State University.

MARGINALIA.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

THE ARTS

THE EMOTIONAL TERRAIN OF CHILDHOOD
John Cech, a professor of English at the University of Florida, examines the work of Maurice Sendak, the well-known author and illustrator of children's books, in Angels and Wild Things, published by the Pennsylvania State University Press.

A Guide to the May 24, 1996, Issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education