Academe Today: Chronicle Archives

A Guide to the November 17, 1995, 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 ISRAEL, SOUL-SEARCHING ON A COLLEGE CAMPUS
Bar-Ilan University, where the man who confessed to the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin is a law student, has begun a period of intense self-examination.

IN MEXICO, MAINTAINING MOMENTUM FOR STUDY ABROAD
Mexican educators are trying to participate in international academic exchanges despite the country's economic troubles.

IN EUROPE, CREATING PARTNERS IN THE EAST
At the annual meeting of the European Association for International Education, plans were made to include universities in formerly Communist countries in the academic-exchange programs of the European Union.

IN IRELAND, A THREAT TO AUTONOMY
Educators are worried about legislation proposed by the Irish education minister that would make the country's universities more accountable to the public.

IN FRANCE, two officials in charge of higher education lost their jobs as President Jacques Chirac tried to bolster his flagging popularity by shuffling his Cabinet.
IN THE UNITED STATES, a report by the American Council on Education says that American students have a poor grasp of international issues and that colleges must do more to foster "intercultural competence."

RESEARCH & PUBLISHING

SCHOLARS EXAMINE AFFIRMATIVE ACTION
Research by professors of psychology, sociology, economics, and political science has yielded some unexpected findings about the controversial policies.

IF SOCIAL PRESSURE LEADS PEOPLE to misstate their views on sensitive subjects, public positions on affirmative action may differ from private opinions.
CRITICS CLAIM THAT AFFIRMATIVE ACTION forces companies to hire unqualified minorities at inflated costs, but new research indicates it may do just the opposite.
SOME WHITES SAY AFFIRMATIVE ACTION threatens their jobs, but a scholar says its impact has been exceedingly modest.
A PSYCHOLOGY PROFESSOR SAYS that how people define affirmative action affects how they feel about it.
RESEARCH INDICATES THAT WHITES who have been exposed to affirmative-action programs may be more, not less, supportive of race-based programs.

A POET WRITES ABOUT RACE
Gerald Early, the director of the African-American studies department at Washington University, has gained prominence in the intellectual debate about race in American life.

PATENTS AND ON-LINE PUBLISHING
The advent of Internet forums and electronic publications has created headaches for universities that want to patent their faculty members' inventions.

SOUND AND THE QUALITY OF LIFE
Martin Gold, a visiting professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio, thinks architects and builders should pay closer attention to acoustic environments.

RECONCILING CRITICAL DIFFERENCES
Literary scholars who are alienated from ideological or theory-based approaches to texts should not part company with others who care about literature, argues Jay Parini, a novelist and professor of English at Middlebury College.

THE UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA has committed $1.5-million to study the surrounding region as a prototype for urban issues.
A CROSS-NATIONAL INVESTIGATION of the use of immigrant labor in the economies of California and Japan will be spearheaded by the University of California at San Diego.
RADCLIFFE COLLEGE HAS RECEIVED a $1-million grant to archive studies of minority populations.
RESEARCH INVOLVING MINORS may be hindered by proposed legislation, scholars and government officials asserted at a Senate hearing last week.
HOT TYPE
- Harvard University, which owns the rights to Emily Dickinson's poems, has denied a professor permission to use them in a new edition of her works.
- Two years ago, the State University of New York Press published a remarkably prescient book by Nachman Ben-Yehuda entitled "Political Assassinations by Jews."
87 NEW SCHOLARLY BOOKS, briefly described.
Nota Bene: "Savage Art: A Biography of Jim Thompson," by Robert Polito, director of the writing program at the New School for Social Research. The book is published by Alfred A. Knopf.

PERSONAL & PROFESSIONAL CONCERNS

DUE-PROCESS DILEMMA
The American Association of University Professors, a leading defender of tenure, has drawn fire for forcing one of its tenured employees to resign.

FAMILY TIES
Universities are developing programs to help their faculty members maintain their family life without jeopardizing professional opportunities.

A MOVER AND A SHAKER
Georgia's new chancellor of higher education, Stephen R. Portch, is making big changes and receiving rave reviews.

THE ETHICS OF INVOLUNTARY COUNSELING
Mandatory therapy in sexual-harassment cases infringes on individual privacy and imperils academic freedom, writes Jonathan Knight, associate secretary of the American Association of University Professors.

THE PRESIDENT OF VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY was asked to resign by 25 professors who think he lacks the intellectual vigor needed for the job.
PARTNERS OF UNMARRIED EMPLOYEES, including those who are homosexual, have been deemed ineligible for benefits at West Virginia University.
A RENOWNED SUFFRAGIST who graduated from Iowa State University is the subject of a heated debate among professors there. Some of them assert she was also a racist and a xenophobe.
JAMES B. HOLDERMAN, the former president of the University of South Carolina who resigned in disgrace, has been indicted on charges of bankruptcy fraud.

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

PATENTS AND ON-LINE PUBLISHING
The advent of Internet forums and electronic publications has created headaches for universities that want to patent their faculty members' inventions.

SOFTWARE TO OVERCOME INTELLECTUAL HURDLES
An alumnus of Berry College is trying to help students there design computer programs that explain the difficult concepts they encounter in their courses.

AN INTERACTIVE SYMPHONIC-MUSIC CATALOGUE may make it easier for band directors to decide which music to buy.
MICROSOFT'S THREE-DIMENSIONAL WORLD ATLAS will receive a boost from "Culturgrams," which the company has licensed from Brigham Young University.
A SOFTWARE COMPANY IS SPONSORING an on-line mathematics contest for the students who use its products.
10 software programs, 15 Internet mailing lists, and 11 other Internet resources.

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

CONGRESSIONAL COMPROMISE ON LOANS
Republicans backed off from proposals that would have cost students billions, but they kept a planned cap on the direct-lending program.

A MOVER AND A SHAKER
Georgia's new chancellor of higher education, Stephen R. Portch, is making big changes and receiving rave reviews.

VICTORIES IN THE STATES
Proponents of increased state aid for higher education were victorious in last week's gubernatorial and legislative elections.

UNCONSTITUTIONAL RESTRICTIONS
According to the Justice Department, the limits that Congress has proposed placing on the content of work supported by the National Endowment for the Arts may be unconstitutional.

SHRINKING THE HUMANITIES ENDOWMENT
The agency is making plans to slash its research, education, and public programs to accord with a 40-per-cent budget cut that is virtually certain to be enacted for fiscal 1996.

REASSESSING RACE-BASED SCHOLARSHIPS
After discovering that it had wrongly used racial and ethnic criteria in a federal-aid program, the University of Minnesota at Twin Cities is rethinking its policies.

STATE EDUCATION OFFICIALS in Pennsylvania are planning to boycott a legislative-committee meeting to protest the panel's controversial chairman, Rep. John A. Lawless.
SEN. ROBERT J. DOLE, a Republican Presidential candidate, spoke out against the Clinton Administration's education policies while on the campaign trail last week.
THE COLLEGE REPUBLICANS OF COLORADO have filed a lawsuit over policies that require student groups to agree not to discriminate against homosexuals.
RESEARCH INVOLVING MINORS may be hindered by proposed legislation, scholars and government officials asserted at a Senate hearing last week.
ALLEGED BIAS IN ITS FIREARMS RESEARCH could lead to the elimination of the National Center for Injury Prevention, a branch of the Centers for Disease Control.
A PROJECT TO IMPROVE THE AMERICAN EDUCATIONAL system by 2000 has made only modest progress, a panel of government officials reported last week.
ONE NEW BILL IN CONGRESS, one new federal regulation, one proposed federal regulation, and one Congressional hearing.

BUSINESS & PHILANTHROPY

PLAYING THE MARKET
Buena Vista College says investing its endowment largely in foreign stocks has paid off, but experts question just how safe that strategy is.

BOOM YEAR FOR ENDOWMENTS
A preliminary study indicates that college endowments, which earned an average return of 15.5 per cent in fiscal 1995, had their best returns in nine years.

DONOR WANTS HIS MONEY BACK
A businessman whose company was the target of student protests has asked Loyola University of New Orleans to return his $600,000 gift.

$100-MILLION FOR PRINCETON
An alumnus from Hong Kong says his gift is intended to strengthen the university's engineering program.

THE HALF-SISTER of New York University's greatest benefactor is challenging his inheritance, part of which he bequeathed to N.Y.U. The bequest includes an Italian estate and $25-million in cash.
A HOUSTON WIDOWER whose wife died in an industrial accident has given $4-million to Texas A&M University to endow the study of chemical-engineering safety.
ADAMS STATE COLLEGE has abandoned its Indian mascot because of continued controversy over the symbol.
21 FOUNDATION GRANTS; eight gifts and bequests.

STUDENTS

BATTLE OVER A HATE-SPEECH CODE
Even though the courts have struck down many such efforts, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst has proposed a controversial new policy to restrict offensive language.

CONGRESSIONAL COMPROMISE ON LOANS
Republicans backed off from proposals that would have cost students billions, but they kept a planned cap on the direct-lending program.

"THE SPACE WE ALL INHABIT"
Will Garin, a senior at Wake Forest University, is exploring the challenges of creating sculpture for public places.

MANY RELIGIOUS COLLEGES are angry that "Money" magazine did not include them in its annual college guide.
TUFTS UNIVERSITY SUSPENDED a program that offered free cab rides to drunken students after the institution concluded that students were abusing the service.
AN UNDERGRADUATE at the University of Michigan regained custody of her 4-year-old daughter after an appeals court held that the mother should not have been penalized for placing her daughter in day care.
THE U.S. NAVAL ACADEMY has charged two dozen midshipmen with selling or using illegal drugs.
KHALID ABDUL MUHAMMAD, a former spokesman for the Nation of Islam, gave a lecture at York College amid a crowd of student protesters and riot police.
A BIRD-RESCUE SQUAD in which more than 30 Eckerd College students participate keeps the avian crowd flying right.
A "MOCKTAIL" PARTY at the University of Cincinnati featured "virgin" daiquiris and crash-test dummies.
A STUDENT WITH AIDS IS SUING one of his former professors at the University of Minnesota for allegedly revealing his H.I.V. status to other students.
AMERICAN STUDENTS HAVE A "PAROCHIAL" understanding of international issues, according to a report by the American Council on Education, and colleges must do more to foster "intercultural competence."

ATHLETICS

THE NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSOCIATION has reinstated a basketball player's eligibility after the University of New Mexico barred him from the team on academic grounds.
THE N.C.A.A. has imposed sanctions on the University of Alabama for rules violations for the third time in the last 10 years.
A BASKETBALL PROSPECT WITH HEART TROUBLE has sued Northwestern University for barring him from the team.
BRIEFLY NOTED.
- Rep. Cardiss L. Collins an Illinois Democrat and veteran advocate for female athletes, will not seek re-election.
- Temple University is forging ahead with plans to build an $85-million recreation-and-retail complex.

OPINION & LETTERS

MARGINALIA.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

THE ARTS