THE FACULTY

• Juan M. Maldacena's work in string theory attracted an unusual offer from Harvard University's physics department.

• A decision made in the wilds of Alaska led Jody Greene to the English department at the University of California at Santa Cruz.

• David Bradley changed fields as a postdoctoral student -- to study the brain -- and the University of Chicago liked what it saw.

• How could slaves lay claim to property? Dylan C. Penningroth's research produced some answers -- and a job at the University of Virginia.

DISMISSING A CRITIC
Randolph Bromery, the president of Springfield College in Massachusetts, has quit amid criticism for firing the campus minister, who days later died of a heart attack: A20

• A SURVEY HAS FOUND that professors new to tenure-track jobs tend to be lonely: A14

• A PROFESSOR OF DANCE at Florida State University has formed the Corps de Ballet International, an association for faculty members who teach ballet: A14

• IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY has dismissed a professor who a state judge found had sexually harassed one student and sexually abused another: A20

• PORTLAND STATE UNIVERSITY violated no laws when it put a professor on indefinite, unpaid sick leave after he behaved nonsensically on the campus, an appeals court has ruled: A20

• THE CENTER FOR CREATIVE STUDIES, an arts school in Detroit, has been accused of firing three instructors who were trying to organize a faculty union: A20

• PEER REVIEW: A78
  • Several key scholars of education reform have moved or plan to move to California.

  • Boston University hopes to woo a leading scholar of myth and religion from the University of Chicago.

RESEARCH & PUBLISHING

DINOSAUR DEBATE
Scientists wonder whether the discovery of multiple Tyrannosaurus rex remains at one site means the carnivores lived or hunted in groups: A23

• A SOCIOLOGIST at Ohio State University has found that Mormons are the exception to the rule that the larger the family, the lower the academic achievement of each child: A35

• BOTH MEN AND WOMEN seem to prefer the look of faces that are characteristically "feminine" to faces that are "masculine" or gender-neutral, according to researchers: A35

• RAIN FORESTS ARE CAPABLE of regaining their diversity of life even after they have been logged, scientists say: A35

• HOT TYPE: A26
  • Word that the writer Raymond Carver was heavily edited by Gordon Lish has come to light, despite efforts by the Carver estate to suppress scholarly exploration of their tense relationship.

• NEW SCHOLARLY BOOKS, briefly described: A26-34
  • Nota Bene: Our Own Backyard: The United States in Central America, 1977-1992, by William M. LeoGrande, a professor of government at American University. The book is published by the University of North Carolina Press.

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

ADVICE ON THE SAT'S
The College Board is selling students on-line tips to improve their writing in entrance-examination essays: A39

SOFTWARE PRICING
After months of criticism by campus computing administrators, the Microsoft Corporation announced a new plan for colleges: A40

CALL FOR FEDERAL FUNDS
A Presidential committee said that U.S. support for research in information technology was "dangerously inadequate": A42

BEST-SELLING TEXTBOOKS
A new World-Wide Web site lets professors and campus bookstores get an inside look at the most widely used volumes: A43

AVOIDING 8 A.M. CLASSES
A computer program designed by a student helps undergraduates at the University of Maryland at College Park create optimal course schedules: A46

• THE PARENT COMPANY of the University of Phoenix is teaming up with a satellite-technology business to offer distance education: A37

• EDUCAUSE, an academic-technology organization, is collecting on its World-Wide Web site links to other sites devoted to efforts to solve "year 2000" computer problems: A37

• A WORLD-WIDE WEB SITE developed by a college consultant offers a vast index of reference works: A45

• FIVE INTERNET-RELATED MAGAZINES and seven other Internet resources: A45

GOVERNMENT & POLITICS (U.S.)

• Proprietary institutions, strengthened by their growing popularity, are gaining more of what they want from Congress.

• College officials say legislation to extend the Higher Education Act contains too many reporting requirements: A48

• The issues for different groups as Congress completes action on the legislation: A49

LIMITS ON ACTIVITY FEES
A federal appeals court has ruled that the University of Wisconsin cannot force students to finance campus groups that engage in political activities with which they disagree: A54

STALLED PROGRESS IN THE SOUTH
Black students in 19 states have far less access to public four-year colleges than do their white peers, according to a report by the Southern Education Foundation: A56

• THE INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE has extended a policy that limits the student data that colleges must report: A47

• A LAWSUIT has challenged programs in Hawaii that benefit only indigenous Hawaiian students: A47

• THE EDUCATION TRUST has issued a report that urges governments to hold teachers' colleges more accountable for the quality of the teachers they train: A50

• THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES passed a bill that would give scholars access to postwar U.S. documents on Nazi war crimes and criminals: A51

• U.S. AUDITS of teaching hospitals' Medicare billings are legal but are unduly "time-consuming and expensive," says a report by the General Accounting Office: A51

• THE FIGHT OVER REMEDIAL COURSES at the City University of New York has moved to state court: A52

• THE UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO can be held liable for sexual harassment by a Reserve Officers Training Corps cadet on its Colorado Springs campus, a federal court has ruled: A52

• A NEW CALIFORNIA LAW says that colleges must work with local police departments to determine responsibility for investigating certain violent crimes: A53

• BLACK ENROLLMENT jumped at the University of California at Berkeley's law school: A53

• CALIFORNIANS WILL VOTE in November on the biggest state bond issue for education in U.S. history: A59

• STATUS OF PENDING FEDERAL LEGISLATION: A58

• NEW FEDERAL REGULATORY ACTIONS: A59

• NEW APPOINTMENTS and nominations in the federal government: A59

MONEY & MANAGEMENT

MAMMOTH BEQUEST
A legal settlement has cleared the way for $125-million gifts to the University of Nebraska and to Polytechnic University: A65

ROMANCE WITH A ROAD
Steven Price, an administrator at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, is writing a series of books that explore the sites and sights along Interstate 80: A12

DISMISSING A CRITIC
Randolph Bromery, the president of Springfield College in Massachusetts, has quit amid criticism for firing the campus minister, who days later died of a heart attack: A20

• THE FAMILY of Osama bin Laden, the accused terrorist mastermind, has given substantial donations to Harvard University in the past: A61

• A NEW SCHOLARSHIP at Louisiana State University honors a victim of the bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya: A61

• A FEDERAL APPEALS COURT has upheld a ruling that found a biotechnology company liable for violating patents owned by the Johns Hopkins University: A65

• THE INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE has extended a policy that limits the student data that colleges must report: A47

• THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA is excavating underground storage space for its libraries' rare books, archives, and rarely used materials: A10

• THE UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH is being criticized for plans to demolish an 88-year-old building on the campus "Acropolis": A10

• MORE THAN 40 COLLEGES on the coast from South Carolina to southern Virginia were damaged by Hurricane Bonnie: A10

• OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY is introducing a new "motorsports" logo by sponsoring three alumni who are race-car drivers: A10

• HARVARD UNIVERSITY officials say Harvard beer, a brew produced by a company in Lowell, Mass., makes the university out to be a sponsor of drinking: A12

• TWO GRAPHS depict trends in faculty pay and the cost of living and pension money invested in the stock market: A63

• FOUNDATION GRANTS; gifts and bequests: A66

STUDENTS

RELIGIOUS-BIAS SUIT DISMISSED
A U.S. judge rejected the claims of Orthodox Jewish students who objected to Yale University's requirement that they live on the campus: A69

ACT SCORES HOLD STEADY
More students than ever before are taking the college-entrance examination, but their average result was stable in 1998: A70

ADVICE ON THE SAT'S
The College Board is selling students on-line tips to improve their writing in entrance-examination essays: A39

MARINE-BIOLOGY SUMMER SCHOOL
On an island off Maine, students take part in a program run by Cornell University and the University of New Hampshire: B2

• THE ANNUAL RANKINGS by U.S. News & World Report and other publications have brought the usual degrees of distinction and dismay to campuses: A67

• A NEW FINANCIAL-AID POLICY is being credited with making more students admitted by Princeton University choose to enroll there: A67

• PROTESTERS URGED the University of California at Berkeley to expel a student who has acknowledged that he walked away as a friend molested and killed a 7-year-old girl at a Nevada casino: A12

• WHAT THEY'RE READING on college campuses: a list of best-selling books: A12

ATHLETICS

• THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN'S stadium is again the largest in college football: A71

• UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN students are complaining about the quality of the football seats they have been allotted: A71

• THE NATIONAL COLLEGIATE Athletic Association has agreed to once again allow religious colleges to avoid playing championship games on days with religious significance: A72

INTERNATIONAL

DEBATE OVER UNESCO MEETING
The United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization plans a World Conference on Higher Education next month, but critics say consensus there will be difficult: A75

• SEVERAL INDIAN SCIENTISTS have reportedly been told to leave universities in the United States in the wake of nuclear-weapons tests by India and Pakistan: A73

• A NEW POLISH LAW requires commercial banks to make low-interest loans to students: A73

• A FACULTY STRIKE in India has shut down universities across the country: A76

• MYANMAR CONVICTED and expelled five U.S. students and an Australian professor for handing out anti-government leaflets: A76

• CANADIAN ACADEMICS were jolted by an opinion poll suggesting that the public doubts the value of university degrees: A77

• A PALESTINIAN EDUCATOR, Hanan Mikhail-Ashrawi, has quit the cabinet of Yasir Arafat: A77

OPINION & LETTERS

PUBLIC-INTEREST BOOKS
Conglomerates have swallowed the publishing industry, but as small presses have shown, there is more to the field than the drive for profits, writes Andre Schiffrin, director of the New Press: B4

SPEED UP DECISION MAKING
Discontent over campus governance is rising, and the solution is to clarify who can make which decisions, says Margaret A. Miller, president of the American Association for Higher Education: B6

REAL HELP FOR MINORITY STUDENTS
Increasing their college enrollment is a worthy goal, but we can do more by lifting their graduation rates, argues Clifford Adelman, a visiting fellow at the College Board: B8

FEMINISM AND 'ALLY McBEAL'
The television show plays on viewers' nostalgia and fatigue, mixing feminist ideas with their refutations, says Leslie Heywood, an assistant professor of English at the State University of New York at Binghamton: B9

• MARGINALIA: A10

• What role should faculty advisers to students newspapers play?: B3
• Happiness and power for part-timers: B10
• Yesterday's radicals, today's universities: B10
• Research on human subjects: B11
• Defending the National Endowment for the Arts: B11
• "Recognition" for adjuncts: B11
• Graduate education in black studies: B11
• The importance of reviewers' status: B11
• Returning to normal in Peru: B11

THE ARTS

A HIGHER-EDUCATION GAZETTE

• APPOINTMENTS AND RESIGNATIONS on U.S. campuses.

• DEATHS of people in academe.

• COMING EVENTS: conferences, workshops, and seminars.

• DEADLINES for fellowships, grants, the submission of papers, and more.

"BULLETIN BOARD": JOB OPENINGS