Internal documents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation show extensive surveillance of some campus activist groups and analysis of their activities. (MSE)

Leaders of urban public universities and many state legislators are challenging the high status of states'"flagship" institutions, saying local institutions can serve local needs best, and are unwilling to defer to premier research universities in requests for general support and new programs. (MSE)

An anthropologist is urging development of better-defined standards for the evaluation of the writing of ethnographies. (MSE)

In most institutions, the faculty hiring process discourages affirmative action. The determination of top administrators is a key factor in success. (MSE)

Administrators who have been successful in recruiting minority faculty members suggest that institutions develop innovative, goal-oriented affirmative action plans, challenge entrenched campus attitudes, find new ways of seeking out qualified applicants, and prevent unwritten campus rules from hindering the process. (MSE)

The Secretary of Education recently claimed that the American public is losing faith in colleges and universities because faculty are removing classic works from the curriculum and replacing them with watered-down offerings, drawing criticism from campus administrators. (MSE)

Hundreds of companies are beginning drives to prepare "at-risk" schoolchildren for higher education and eventually pay their tuition, a major change in emphasis from recent corporate giving patterns. (MSE)

The Network of Colleges and Universities Committed to the Elimination of Drug and Alcohol Abuse, a national higher-education group for exchanging information about substance abuse programs has issued a set of 22 standards for college policy formation and enforcement. Institutions will be invited to join the network. (MSE)

If art students are to be educated for the twenty-first century, still preserving creativity, students must be taught that art is an integral, functioning part of the world. Their education must go beyond one or two areas in the fine arts to include a solid liberal arts grounding. (MSE)

The Education Department declared that four states that had been under court order to desegregate their public colleges were now in compliance with federal civil rights laws and that six others were expected to fulfill their obligations easily. Civil rights lawyers said none of the states had met the requirements. (MLW)

A chronology of action arising from a 1970 lawsuit brought against the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund is presented. (MLW)

Statements released by the Office for Civil Rights of the U.S. Department of Education summarizing the office's findings on the states' progress in meeting goals set out in their desegregation plans are presented. (MLW)

A 1985 survey conducted by the Modern Language Association found that undergraduate English courses are still organized around genres or historical periods although feminist criticism and reconstruction have had a major influence on scholarly work. Attacks by Secretary Bennett and other critics of curriculum revision are discussed. (MLW)

A report on for-profit trade schools said that many schools offer such poor-quality training that large numbers of their students drop out and default on their student loans when they cannot find jobs. Secretary Bennett calls on Congress to crack down on proprietary schools. (MLW)

The new University of the Arts was created by the merger of the Philadelphia College of Art and the Philadelphia College of the Performing Arts. An increasing interchange among art disciplines is seen, but each student must also take liberal arts courses. (MLW)