A Guide to the March 15, 1996, Issue
of The Chronicle of Higher Education

INTERNATIONAL

• Ukrainian universities are operating amid widespread corruption and debilitating shortages.

IN AUSTRALIA, A TIME OF UNCERTAINTY
Universities are unsure of how the Conservative Party's recent electoral triumph will affect them.

IN ISRAEL, A MAJOR CRACKDOWN
The government raided and closed down four Palestinian universities it said were harboring Islamic extremists.

IN PERU, SURVIVING WITHOUT THE DRUG TRADE
Kennedy Farji, an instructor at the country's La Molina National Agrarian University, is trying to teach the peasants who are his neighbors how to earn a living without cultivating the coca plant.

IN THE UNITED STATES, FULBRIGHT FUTURES
Guests at the program's 50th-anniversary symposium focused on saving the fellowships, not just celebrating them.

• ALSO IN THE UNITED STATES, the U.S. Air Force Academy canceled a performance by a Cuban dance ensemble after Cuban jets shot down two civilian planes from Florida.

• ALSO IN THE U.S., the British government and the State University of New York collaborated to bring a Scottish festival to SUNY's Binghamton campus.

• IN BOSNIA, a team of experts from the University of Missouri at Columbia is helping to train child-care workers.

RESEARCH & PUBLISHING

HOW WE RESPOND TO TECHNOLOGY
Byron Reeves and Clifford Nass, Stanford University professors who helped create Microsoft's "Bob" software, argue that people react to computers and television the same way they react to other people.

• A TREATISE ON THE NATURE OF LIGHT by Leonard Mandel and Emil Wolf, professors at the University of Rochester, has turned into a publishing hit for Cambridge University Press.

• THE GUEST CURATOR of the Library of Congress's controversial exhibit on Sigmund Freud, Michael S. Roth, has taken a new job as assistant director of the Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities.

• HOT TYPE
  • The College Art Association meeting in Boston last month featured a lavish, new 1,168-page textbook, a 34-volume art dictionary, and a tip for those seeking publication.

• 73 NEW SCHOLARLY BOOKS, briefly described.
  • Nota Bene: Inventing Ireland: The Literature of the Modern Nation, by Declan Kiberd, a lecturer in English at University College in Dublin. The book is published by Harvard University Press.

PERSONAL & PROFESSIONAL CONCERNS

• The weak job market for new scientists has prompted some doctoral programs in the field to start training students for careers outside academe.

DIVIDED MEDICAL SCHOOL
Citing a conflict with the dean, all 11 physicians in the internal-medicine department of the Las Vegas branch of the University of Nevada's School of Medicine have said they will quit.

AN EDUCATIONAL GAMBLE
The International Gaming Institute at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas teaches casino odds, the rules of the games, and the latest tricks of the trade.

SURVIVING WITHOUT THE DRUG TRADE
Kennedy Farji, an instructor at Peru's La Molina National Agrarian University, is trying to teach the peasants who are his neighbors how to earn a living without cultivating the coca plant.

• ROBERT O. KEOHANE, a Harvard University political scientist, will soon join the faculty at Duke University, where his wife is the president.

• JOHN SILBER, the outspoken president of Boston University, discussed the legacy of the late Frank C. Erwin, Jr., at a symposium last month on the University of Texas leader. The strong-willed Erwin fired Mr. Silber in 1970.

• HERMAN D. LUJAN, the president of the University of Northern Colorado and one of the few Latino chief executive officers in academe, has agreed to step down in June.

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

FACULTY UNIONS AND NEW TECHNOLOGY
Some people at a recent meeting of the National Education Association gave a grim assessment of the effects on higher education of computerized teaching and distance learning.

HOW WE RESPOND TO TECHNOLOGY
Byron Reeves and Clifford Nass, Stanford University professors who helped create Microsoft's "Bob" software, argue that people react to computers and television the same way they react to other people.

THE COST OF COMPUTING
The investments that colleges have made in information technology have failed to stem the growth of staff or to hold down administrative costs, argues Paul A. Attewell, a professor of sociology at the Graduate School and University Center of the City University of New York.

• FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY PLANS to issue new identification cards to its students so that they can check their grades, request transcripts, and conduct other business on line.

• INTERNET-SECURITY EXPERTS have identified a serious flaw in Java, a new programming language for the World-Wide Web.

• A PHILOSOPHY PROFESSOR at Mississippi State University and an English professor at Centenary College of Louisiana are teaching a joint class on the Internet.

• UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA RESEARCHERS have developed a new software tool that makes it easier to build multimedia projects.

• A PROFESSOR AT THE U.S. MILITARY ACADEMY has created on-line materials that are tailored to students' individual learning styles.

• SEVEN SOFTWARE PROGRAMS, six videos, and 10 other Internet resources.

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

A SURGE IN FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE
A national survey shows an increase in spending by states on student-aid programs, especially programs that are not based on need.

ADDING DIVERSITY TO SCIENTIFIC STUDIES
More women and members of minority groups are subjects in clinical-research projects, according to the National Institutes of Health.

BATTLE OVER APPROPRIATIONS
The House of Representatives has passed a fiscal-1996 spending bill that would kill several higher-education programs, but President Clinton is threatening to veto it.

FUTURE OF FULBRIGHTS IN QUESTION
Guests at the program's 50th-anniversary symposium focused on saving the fellowships, not just celebrating them.

• HAROLD LIEBOWITZ, who won election to the presidency of the National Academy of Engineering in an upset, is fighting efforts to force him from office.

• THE PRESIDENT OF FISK UNIVERSITY, Henry Ponder, has been named the new chief executive of the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education.

• THE VERMONT HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION has ruled that Vermont Technical College's summer camp for girls did not unlawfully discriminate just because it refused to admit boys.

• SEVERE BUDGET CUTS IN THE UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII system have drawn fire from students and professors.

• AN ETHICS INVESTIGATION OF NEWT GINGRICH has led to subpoenas for officials at Kennesaw State and Reinhardt Colleges, where the House Speaker once taught courses.

• A HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES PANEL APPROVED legislation last week that would bar the federal government from using affirmative-action policies.

• NEW YORK UNIVERSITY'S SCHOOL OF MEDICINE has postponed a plan to transfer ownership of a controversial primate laboratory that is being probed by the government.

• MARY WASHINGTON COLLEGE has been charged by the U.S. Justice Department with violating a federal housing law that bars discrimination against the disabled.

• FOUR NEW BILLS IN CONGRESS and three new federal regulatory actions.

BUSINESS & PHILANTHROPY

THE COST OF COMPUTING
The investments that colleges have made in information technology have failed to stem the growth of staff or to hold down administrative costs, argues Paul A. Attewell, a professor of sociology at the Graduate School and University Center of the City University of New York.

• THE KENDALL COLLEGE OF ART AND DESIGN plans to merge with Ferris State University.

• OSEOLA MCCARTY, the 88-year-old laundress who donated $150,000 to the University of Southern Mississippi last year, is the subject of a videotape produced by The American Benefactor, a new quarterly magazine.

• THE KAUFFMAN FOUNDATION WILL BUY 28 acres of the University of Missouri's Kansas City campus to build a conference center and office complex.

• TEIKYO MARYCREST UNIVERSITY has been removed from an accrediting agency's probation list.

• FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY PLANS to issue new identification cards to its students so that they can check their grades, request transcripts, and conduct other business on line.

• AT NORTHEASTERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY, students, alumni, local residents, and the institution's foundation have raised $10,000 to repair the campus's seismograph.

• FEDERAL AUTHORITIES HAVE CHARGED a man with stealing 140 historic maps and documents from university libraries across the country.

STUDENTS

ALLEGATIONS OF ANTI-SEMITISM
A student newspaper at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has been accused of using offensive language and images in a recent article.

• PRINCETON UNIVERSITY AGAIN CAUGHT A CON ARTIST who had been using a false identity to masquerade as a student.

• THE FOUNDER OF THE EVANGELICAL GROUP Campus Crusade for Christ International, William R. Bright, has won a $1-million prize for his work.

• THE COMEDIAN JAY LENO CANCELED plans to appear at Loyola University in Chicago after he heard that students were not happy that a more scholarly speaker had not been invited.

• STUDENTS AT RENSSELAER POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE helped run an experiment aboard the space shuttle Columbia last week.

• OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY HAS SUSPENDED two white students who were accused of harassing a black student.

• ART STUDENTS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN are protesting plans to hire three professors specializing in computer design rather than in traditional areas such as ceramics or painting.

• STUDENTS AT NORTH CENTRAL BIBLE COLLEGE learned that ice fishing can be a religious experience.

• STUDENTS CELEBRATED ENGINEERS WEEK at the University of Cincinnati with an egg-dropping contest and a calculator toss.

ATHLETICS

• SAINT LEO COLLEGE IS BEING SUED by a group of athletes and coaches for sex discrimination.

• NEW RULES FROM THE U.S. EDUCATION DEPARTMENT may change the way the National Collegiate Athletic Association gathers graduation-rate information.

• MISSISSIPPI STATE UNIVERSITY has been put on probation by the National Collegiate Athletic Association for rules violations in football.

OPINION & LETTERS

THE GOVERNMENT'S MOST SECRETIVE AGENCY
Shelley L. Davis, a former historian at the Internal Revenue Service, says the agency is a virtual black hole when it comes to documenting how it conducts business.

• MARGINALIA.

• Protecting the rights of children.
• The ethics of a project in virtual anatomy.
• Precedents at the University of California.
• Individual rights vs. the needs of science.
• International houses on college campuses.
• Can computers replace professors?

THE ARTS

ASPIRING TOWARD THE COLLECTIVE
An exhibit on graphic design in the Soviet Union from 1917 to 1937 is on display at Columbia University through March 30.

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