Increasingly, institutions are seeking money directly from Congress for new research facilities and other science projects, stirring criticism of "pork-barrel science" and special advantages given to land-grant colleges. (MSE)

Excerpts from the National Collegiate Athletic Association Presidents' Commission policy paper on intercollegiate athletics reform address such issues as the college experience of athletes, awarding of student financial aid, eligibility, the effects of competition, recruitment policies, program effects on institutions as well as athletes, and…

A forthcoming report of the international Organization for Economic Development urges educators to provide better supervision of doctoral candidates and encourage them to take their research more seriously. (MSE)

Aggressive campaigns by small groups of citizens have made it nearly impossible to close or merge public colleges, with the result that parochial interests often triumph over the needs of the state as a whole and higher education planning is becoming more political and less logical. (Author/MSE)

Charles E. Curran, whose license to teach Catholic theology has been revoked by the Vatican, is part of a broad-based revisionist movement that is challenging the Church's traditional, neoscholastic approach to the discipline. (MSE)

In the last 25 years, 80 to 100 chairs or institutes focusing on the study of capitalism have been established on college campuses, sometimes facing criticism because of potential conflict with the institution's mission. (MSE)

Critics of standardized tests support new legislation to provide breakdowns of test results by sex, race, and ethnic group, confident they will find evidence of bias. (MSE)

State higher education officers agree that reforms of higher education have budgetary effects their supporters fail to consider, and they are in the position of having to explain the real costs of new programs and policies. (MSE)

A Southern Regional Education Board report warns that if state leaders do not insist that two-year college students meet publicly recognized performance standards, public confidence in the institutions could decline. (MSE)

Colleges and universities are joining a growing number of philanthropists in guaranteeing middle-school students tuition for college and all the tutoring and assistance they'll need to make it there. (MSE)

The American Association for the Advancement of Science has launched a project to find ways to teach science to nonscientists and to determine what constitutes a liberal-arts science education. The effort grew from a Holmes Group recommendation to improve the quality of teacher education. (MSE)

The American Association of University Professors believes its removal of six colleges from its censure list, the largest since 1975, illustrates the strength and power of its sanction. All of the institutions revised their policies to comply with association standards on dismissals, tenure, and other issues of academic freedom. (MSE)

Religious scholars paint a gloomy picture of the intellectual climate for professors of religion today, citing restrictive church laws, attacks on dissenting academics, and arbitrary tests of orthodoxy. (MSE)

Educators in the field of English are concerned about teaching a student population that increasingly expects to be entertained and cannot tolerate boredom. Concerns include reliance on print-oriented teaching methods, changed language needs, research and teaching innovations, and needed changes in the educational structure and resources to meet…

Although efforts to keep talented students within the state, primarily by offering merit scholarships, are politically popular, state officials are not sure they will be effective. (MSE)