A Guide to the April 28, 1995, Issue
of The Chronicle of Higher Education

AFFIRMATIVE ACTION ON THE LINE: A SPECIAL REPORT

• The University of California at Los Angeles uses an elaborate system of racial preferences to bring diversity to its classes. Both the detractors and defenders of affirmative action cite U.C.L.A. to support their views.
• The University of Maryland at College Park views its scholarship program for black students as a model for student recruitment, but critics say it is discriminatory and aids mostly well-off blacks.
• At the University of Virginia, minority students are not the only group that receives special treatment in the admission process. So do artists, athletes, and the children of faculty members and alumni.
• Many private colleges are reluctant to discuss affirmative action or to release statistics that could be used to compare the qualifications of their white and minority students.
• At Northwestern University, white graduate students in English endorse the principle of affirmative action, but they worry about its impact on their careers.
• At Davidson College, black students say that a little-examined benefit of affirmative action is the role they play in educating their white classmates.
• A chronology shows key events that have affected the enrollment of minority students since 1964.
• Three charts and two tables track trends affecting affirmative action since the 1960s and '70s, including college enrollments by race and ethnicity, degrees earned by minority students, and rates of high-school completion and college matriculation.
• A 10-page table lists enrollments by race at 3,400 institutions of higher education in 1993.

INTERNATIONAL

• A key issue in the conflict between Sri Lanka's Tamil minority and Sinhalese-dominated government has been the government policy of restricting Tamil admissions to the country's universities.

IN AUSTRALIA, RATING THE RATINGS
A system of assessing the quality of education at the nation's public universities has helped raise standards in teaching and learning, a government committee has reported. But critics say the system's distribution of bonus grants doesn't help those institutions that most need more aid.

• IN MOLDOVA, A STUDENT STRIKE OVER A COURSE has turned into a movement to unseat the government. The students originally were protesting a course on the politically sensitive topic of Romania. Now they want the cabinet to resign.
• IN MINSK IN JUNE, 23 pre-medical and business students from Birmingham Southern College will work at a Belarusan hospital that cares for victims of the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl.
• IN BUDAPEST, a new international law-enforcement academy is scheduled to open this week. The curriculum was developed by two universities in the United States.
• IN KYRGYZSTAN, Portland State University has begun a project to update and expand the business-education program at Osh State University.
• IN GERMANY, the state of Baden-Wurttemberg and Oregon State University are expanding their 25-year-old exchange program to include internship opportunities for students.
• A CONSORTIUM OF SIX U.S. INSTITUTIONS has established an exchange program with universities in Brazil, Indonesia, and Turkey. The aim is to encourage Americans to study in these countries.
• BRIEFLY NOTED: exchanges involving three U.S. and five non-U.S. institutions of higher education.

RESEARCH & PUBLISHING

HOUSE BILL WOULD LIMIT SURVEYS OF CHILDREN
Social and behavioral scientists are worried that a bill passed this month by the House of Representatives could make it more difficult for them to conduct research on children. The bill would require federally sponsored scientists to get permission from parents before asking minors certain questions.

• LAST WEEK'S MEETING OF THE AMERICAN PHYSICAL SOCIETY saw the eruption of an unusual controversy over the precise value of Newton's gravitational constant, known to physicists by the symbol G, which describes the strength of gravity.
• ORGANIZERS OF A MEETING at the University of Michigan intend to celebrate people who are blind or deaf or in wheelchairs. The interdisciplinary conference on disability and the arts, "This/Ability," is scheduled for May 18-20.
• 93 NEW SCHOLARLY BOOKS, briefly described.
• Nota Bene: Negotiating Difference: Race, Gender, and the Politics of Positionality, by Michael Awkward, an associate professor of English at the University of Michigan. The publisher is the University of Chicago Press.
• HOT TYPE.
  • In the March issue of "PMLA," David Chinitz argues that T.S. Eliot drew often on the language and rhythms of popular culture in the composition of his most famous poetry. But Chinitz, an English professor at Loyola University of Chicago, refers only glancingly to the poems, because Eliot's widow refused his requests to excerpt them.
  • The latest "minnesota review" is an extra-large issue devoted to "The Institution of Literature: States of Theory." Besides a selection of fiction and poetry, the issue features 30 essays on the latest in literary studies.
  • Two professors were among the winners of Pulitzer Prizes last week. Philip Levine, an emeritus professor at California State University at Fresno, won in poetry; and Joan Hedrick, a historian at Trinity College (Conn.), was cited for a biography of Harriet Beecher Stowe.
• THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS has made available on the World-Wide Web digitized images of four notebooks kept by the poet Walt Whitman. The books were stolen from the library around 1944 and recently recovered.
• PRESIDENT CLINTON LAST WEEK SIGNED an executive order that will speed the release of many federal documents.
• LISTINGS OF 311 WINNERS of fellowships and other honors.
• The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation has awarded fellowships to 152 artists, scholars, and scientists.
• The Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation has named 97 winners of the 1995 Andrew W. Mellon Fellowships in Humanistic Studies.
• The Chicago Community Trust has designated 15 researchers in the chemical and biological sciences as 1995 Searle Scholars.
• The National Academy of Education has announced the names of nine new members.
• The Association of Theological Schools in the United States and Canada has selected seven scholars as Henry Luce III Fellows in Theology for 1995-96.
• The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars has appointed 31 fellows for the 1995-96 academic year.

PERSONAL & PROFESSIONAL CONCERNS

WHICH PROFESSORS EARN THE MOST?
The best-paid professors at baccalaureate and comprehensive institutions are in engineering and business, according to a survey of 1994-95 salaries by the College and University Personnel Association. The survey does not include law or medical professors, who typically make the most.

• Fact File: Average faculty salaries by rank in selected fields at public and private four-year institutions in 1994-95.

• FACULTY LEADERS AT BOSTON UNIVERSITY were so angry that their next president was chosen without a national search that they held a vote to condemn the process. Last week, the faculty referendum passed overwhelmingly.
• THE UNIVERSITY OF IOWA has turned to the Internet for help in its search for a new president. You may use a World-Wide Web page created for the purpose to nominate anyone for the job.
• HARRISON KASH, A CHEMISTRY PROFESSOR at Missouri Southern State College, has no training in film studies, but for 33 years he has kept alive a film society that shows silent and foreign movies to a small but loyal audience.
• THE PRESIDENT OF ROSEMONT COLLEGE HAS ANNOUNCED she will resign rather than cancel an art exhibit about undergarments.
• DOZENS OF PEOPLE GATHERED AT MORAVIAN COLLEGE this month to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration camp at Buchenwald.

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

ADVICE ON COLLEGES' HIGH-TECH COMPETITION
Gerhard Casper, the president of Stanford University, said in a speech to the American Educational Research Association that financial pressures and technological advances would cause some students to consider computerized or televised alternatives to colleges if they were not persuaded of the value of attending institutions of higher education.

• THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER at the University of Oklahoma established a World-Wide Web page last week to provide current news of the bombing in Oklahoma City.
• THE UNIVERSITY OF IOWA has turned to the Internet for help in its search for a new president. You may use a World-Wide Web page created for the purpose to nominate anyone for the job.
• THE NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION has chosen MCI Telecommunications Corporation to provide supercomputer users with a high-speed network.
• H-NET, A SCHOLARLY PROJECT that manages more than 50 electronic mailing lists in the field of history, has begun to publish book reviews for its thousands of readers.
• "COMPUTATIONAL SCIENCE HIGHLIGHTS," a repository of multimedia science articles that demonstrate the capabilities of supercomputers, is available through the World-Wide Web.
• THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS has made available on the World-Wide Web digitized images of four notebooks kept by the poet Walt Whitman. The books were stolen from the library around 1944 and recently recovered.
• "CORNELL POLITICAL FORUM," an eight-year-old magazine of student opinion with a limited circulation in the United States, now has global ambitions, thanks to exposure on the World-Wide Web.
• THREE NEW COMPUTER PROGRAMS, four new optical disks.

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

SOUTH CAROLINA MAY REOPEN WASTE SITE
Gov. David Beasley has proposed reopening a site in the state for the disposal of low-level radioactive waste from across the country. The proposal was welcome news to universities that had been forced to store the waste on their campuses since South Carolina stopped accepting it last July.

HOUSE BILL WOULD LIMIT SURVEYS OF CHILDREN Social and behavioral scientists are worried that a bill passed this month by the House of Representatives could make it more difficult for them to conduct research on children. The bill would require federally sponsored scientists to get permission from parents before asking minors certain questions.

• MEMBERS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF ENGINEERING have rejected the choice of their nominating committee in electing a new president. Harold Liebowitz, an engineering professor at George Washington University, narrowly beat out Cornelius J. Pings, the committee's candidate.
• GOV. GARY JOHNSON OF NEW MEXICO surprised educators when he vetoed a college-scholarship bill that had been championed by his wife. The bill would have provided full scholarships to state universities for youths in foster care.
• PRESIDENT CLINTON LAST WEEK SIGNED an executive order that will speed up the release of many federal documents.
• THE WHITE HOUSE CALLED ON universities last week to adopt an "environmental ethic," citing in particular a pact between the Environmental Protection Agency and George Washington University that would make G.W. a "green" institution.
• THE U.S. EDUCATION DEPARTMENT HAS DECLARED that an alternative electronic form of the federal student-aid application, developed by a consortium of lenders, is improper, and that colleges should not use it.
• PROVIDING FEDERAL GRANTS REDUCES the dropout rate of low-income students, but providing loans generally has little or no effect on dropouts, according to a study by the General Accounting Office.
• A FEDERAL JUDGE HAS DELAYED his recent order that public colleges in Mississippi adopt tougher admission standards. The eight institutions will not have to use the new requirements until the 1996-97 academic year.
• FLORIDA LEGISLATORS WERE OUTRAGED this month when they heard that the University of Florida had invited three professors from Cuba to conduct a symposium on its campus.
• STATE ALLOCATIONS TO UNIVERSITIES in Michigan traditionally rise by the same percentage, but this year Michigan State University asked for a higher increase than the University of Michigan. Their public fight may be unprecedented.
• MICHIGAN OFFICIALS RECENTLY ANNOUNCED plans to create a "trade academy" that will link two education trends: charter schools and school-to-work programs. The new academy will teach skills that a group of 12 employers requires.
• MANY EDUCATORS IN MASSACHUSETTS are harshly criticizing a new study that urges the state to consider closing some public colleges and overhauling the missions of others.
• 12 NEW BILLS IN CONGRESS, eight new federal regulations.
• STATUS OF PENDING FEDERAL LEGISLATION

BUSINESS & PHILANTHROPY

• AMERICA'S BLACK COLLEGES PROGRAM, a fledgling organization that is trying to turn consumer spending into student scholarships at black colleges, has recruited two big-name supporters, but it's attracted some skeptics as well.
• PRIME MINISTER BENAZIR BHUTTO OF PAKISTAN and her government gave Harvard Law School's Center for Islamic Legal Studies $100,000 this month.
• METROPOLITAN COMMUNITY COLLEGE SPENT nearly $20,000 to reprint course schedules after college officials discovered that pranksters had added non-existent courses, such as "Nerd Dancing," to the original schedule.
• FIVE FOUNDATION GRANTS; six gifts and bequests.

STUDENTS

• YALE UNIVERSITY STUDENTS HAVE ASKED the institution to remove a painting from its boardroom that depicts a dark-skinned man kneeling before Elihu Yale, the college's white founder.
• STUDENTS AT NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY HAVE BEGUN a series of fasts to pressure the institution into establishing a department of Asian studies.
• BLACK STUDENTS AT DEPAUL UNIVERSITY ENDED a 10-day sit-in at the office of the student newspaper after administrators agreed to most of their demands.
• STUDENTS AT RUTGERS UNIVERSITY CLASHED with police during a sit-in staged on a local highway as part of an attempt to force the university's president to resign.
• THREE STUDENTS ARE BIKING ACROSS THE COUNTRY to raise awareness of AIDS among college students. The bicyclists are from Duke and Arizona State Universities.
• WHAT THEY'RE READING ON COLLEGE CAMPUSES: a list of best-selling books.

ATHLETICS

2 UNIVERSITIES SETTLE WITH COACHES
In separate settlements this month, the University of Minnesota at Twin Cities and Eastern Washington University agreed to pay off former coaches to avoid lawsuits. The coaches claimed that the universities had discriminated against them.

• THE WOMEN'S SPORTS FOUNDATION and the National Association of Collegiate Women Athletic Administrators last week challenged opponents of Title IX who say that the law has led colleges to unfairly cut support for men's teams.
• THE RAINBOW COMMISSION ON FAIRNESS IN ATHLETICS, a group founded by the Rev. Jesse Jackson to promote diversity in sports, has announced that it will release evaluations of how college sports programs treat blacks and women.
• A FORMER ASSISTANT TRACK COACH AT BROWN UNIVERSITY has been convicted of raping a member of the women's track team. The coach, William (Skip) Miller, faces 10 years in prison.
• 12 APPOINTMENTS AND RESIGNATIONS in intercollegiate athletics.

OPINION & LETTERS

THE TRUE VALUE OF THE HUMANITIES ENDOWMENT
Robert Cheatham, executive director of the Tennessee Humanities Council and chairman of the Federation of State Humanities Councils, defends the National Endowment for the Humanities from critics like the pundit George F. Will, who only a few years ago praised a key recipient of N.E.H. money. It is not true, says Cheatham, that N.E.H. grants to scholars are tainted by "political correctness," but critics like Mr. Will now find it politically expedient to make this claim.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

• Examining tenure, academic freedom, and faculty careers
• The rights of writers to their works in cyberspace
• More on the "ghettoization" of African history
• The state of affairs at the University of Bridgeport
• Perspectives on the concerns of scholarly publishing

THE ARTS

LEGACY OF A MASTER CERAMICIST
"Keepers of the Flame: Ken Ferguson's Circle," an exhibition of works by colleagues and former students of Mr. Ferguson, is on display through May 21 at the Kansas City Art Institute's Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art and Design. Mr. Ferguson is chairman of the institute's ceramics department.

• STUDENTS AT THE SAVANNAH COLLEGE OF ART AND DESIGN have broken the record for the world's largest painting with a 77,000-square-foot rendering of Elvis Presley.
• THE PRESIDENT OF ROSEMONT COLLEGE HAS ANNOUNCED she will resign rather than cancel an art exhibit about undergarments.

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