A GUIDE to the April 25, 1997, Chronicle

INTERNATIONAL

MONEY-MAKING ACTIVITY IN CHINA
Cash-strapped universities are supplementing their revenue by selling art and alternative medicine to foreign tourists: A45

A NICHE IN FOREIGN LITERATURE
Northwestern University Press has developed a specialty in fiction and poetry from around the world, with an emphasis on Central and Eastern Europe: A15

A DYING LANGUAGE IN UKRAINE
Although speakers of Yiddish are dwindling in the country, a small group of students at Solomon International University is studying it: B2

• IN PORTUGAL, representatives of many countries signed an international pact to ease recognition of academic credentials: A43

• IN THE UNITED STATES, a new journal and World-Wide Web site provide information to disabled students on studying abroad: A43

• IN INDIA, fierce protests led some university officials to drop a rule requiring students to attend classes: A46

• ALSO IN INDIA, a government regulatory agency has decided it will no longer recognize medical degrees awarded in the countries of the former Soviet Union: A46

• IN CANADA, educators and librarians are opposing a bill that would limit copyright exceptions for universities: A46

• ALSO IN CANADA, a strike continues at York University over changes in the institution's pension plan and benefits for full-time faculty members and librarians: A46

• IN THAILAND, the government has blacklisted five diploma mills based in the United States: A46

• IN NEW ZEALAND, Victoria University of Wellington has been sued by former students over the quality of their education: A46

RESEARCH & PUBLISHING

A NICHE IN FOREIGN LITERATURE
Northwestern University Press has developed a specialty in fiction and poetry from around the world, with an emphasis on Central and Eastern Europe: A15

THE IMPACT OF CORPORATE INFLUENCE?
An article on thyroid research that was abruptly pulled from The Journal of the American Medical Association in 1995, under threat of a lawsuit, has finally been published: A16

A DYING LANGUAGE IN UKRAINE
Although speakers of Yiddish are dwindling in the country, a small group of students at Solomon International University is studying it: B2

• SCIENTISTS AT COLORADO STATE University are predicting an increase in Atlantic hurricanes in 1997: A16

• FOSSILS FOUND IN UGANDA may be those of the oldest-known ancestor of apes and human beings: A16

• RESEARCHERS HAVE IDENTIFIED an enzyme structure that may lead to an effective treatment for alcoholism: A16

• HOT TYPE: A18
  • A conference at Brown University on modernity and modern culture saw presentations by Ann Douglas, author of the award-winning Terrible Honesty: Mongrel Manhattan in the 1920s, and by the co-editors of the journal Modernism/Modernity, who have had an unusual falling-out.

• 77 NEW SCHOLARLY BOOKS, briefly described: A17-21
  • Nota Bene: In the Company of Mushrooms: A Biologist's Tale, by Elio Schaechter, a professor emeritus of molecular biology and microbiology at Tufts University's School of Medicine. The book is published by Harvard University Press.

THE FACULTY

WHAT THEY MAKE
Faculty members at public colleges got raises averaging 6.14 per cent in 1996-97, while the average pay increase at private institutions was 2.5 per cent: A12

SUSPENSION IN FLORIDA
Florida Atlantic University took action against a professor accused by federal officials of purchasing a Honduran boy and bringing him to the United States to be his sex partner: A13

THE PEN AND THE PAGE
Xuefei Jin, a Chinese-American professor of creative writing at Emory University, says earning a prestigious award for his first short-story collection means he has to "write better": A8

• STANLEY FISH, a professor of law and English at Duke University and executive director of its press, has proposed a new humanities center for the campus: A10

• A MOLECULAR BIOLOGIST at the University of California at Davis has set up a fund to compensate Third World nations for providing genetic materials for research: A10

• STUDENTS, ALUMNI, and faculty members are protesting the suspension of a Flathead Valley Community College professor accused of sexual harassment: A13

• A COALITION OF SOCIAL-SERVICE and education groups is pushing "civic education" in schools and colleges: A13

• A DISTINGUISHED BRITISH mathematician has sued a toilet-paper manufacturer for copyright infringement: A6

• IN A MOCK ELECTION, graduate students at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign voted to unionize: A6

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

MOST WIRED
A magazine has ranked colleges and universities on how well they are using the Internet, and it has come up with a few surprises: A24

• MOREHOUSE COLLEGE has inaugurated a program to computerize churches in Atlanta: A23

• A SCHEME AT WABASH COLLEGE to put the radio station's broadcasts on line takes several twists and turns: A23

• THE NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL urged governments around the world to work to assure access to scientific data bases: A25

• A SURVEY SHOWS that an increasing number of high-school seniors used the Internet this year to gather information on colleges: A25

• BATES COLLEGE PROVIDES an on-line chat room for prospective students: A25

• STUDENT-AID ACTIVISTS are using an on-line petition to pressure Congress to make education a top priority: A28

• A NEW JOURNAL and World-Wide Web site provide information to disabled students on studying abroad: A43

• 7 SOFTWARE PROGRAMS, 14 Internet lists, and 7 other Internet resources: A26-27

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

REVERSAL ON "HOPWOOD"
The U.S. Education Department has changed its position on how colleges in Texas should respond to a federal court's decision restricting affirmative action in admissions: A32

REAUTHORIZING THE NSF
The House of Representatives' Science Committee voted to raise the spending ceiling by 7.2 per cent for fiscal 1998, to more than $3.5-billion: A32

TURNOVER IN VIRGINIA
The state's coordinating board for higher education, with a push from members newly appointed by a Republican Governor, has fired its long-time director: A34

• COLORADO HAS PENALIZED five public colleges for not awarding enough degrees to minority students: A28

• STUDENT-AID ACTIVISTS are using an on-line petition to pressure Congress to make education a top priority: A28

• THE SENATE PANEL that sets the Education Department's budget responded coolly to President Clinton's college-aid plan: A32

• PRESIDENT CLINTON NAMED Sandra L. Thurman, an activist from Atlanta, to coordinate federal efforts to combat AIDS: A33

• THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE has published regulations to define colleges with "anti-military" policies: A33

• JOHN W. RYAN, the interim chancellor of the State University of New York, has been recommended for permanent appointment: A34

• MICHIGAN'S ATTORNEY GENERAL has declared unconstitutional a law that reduces state funds for public colleges that extend fringe benefits to unmarried partners of employees: A34

• TWO MEN CHARGED with running a fraudulent scholarship service have agreed to a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission: A8

MONEY & MANAGEMENT

CHARGES OF INSIDER TRADING
The Securities and Exchange Commission sued a professor at Wayne State University, his former research assistant, and 11 of their friends and relatives who allegedly profited from their knowledge of an ineffective drug: A36

MONEY-MAKING ACTIVITY IN CHINA
Cash-strapped universities are supplementing their revenue by selling art and alternative medicine to foreign tourists: A45

• PRINCETON UNIVERSITY is taking an entrepreneur to court for selling parts of its dismantled football stadium. The pieces were allegedly bought from a construction worker: A35

• JAY LENO, host of "The Tonight Show," has endowed a scholarship in car-restoration studies at McPherson College: A35

• THE SOUTHERN ASSOCIATION of Colleges and Schools has denied Knoxville College's appeal to keep its accreditation: A36

• STANFORD UNIVERSITY HAS MET half of its $200-million fund-raising goal to endow 300 new graduate fellowships: A37

• AN INVESTIGATION into the price-fixing of books sold in college stores has narrowed its focus to eight publishers: A37

• A NEW SCHOLARSHIP at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University will benefit one student from each public high school in the state every year: A37

• A DARTMOUTH COLLEGE ALUMNUS has donated his orchid collection to the institution: A8

STUDENTS

READ THE BOOK
Villanova University has banned Cliffs Notes study guides from the college store, prompting students and the publisher to accuse the institution of censorship: A40

• A STUDENT GROUP at Swarthmore College has asked that a question on tolerance of gay people be included on a survey to determine freshman roommates: A39

• THE WOMAN CHOSEN as Miss Elizabeth City State University has resigned to protest the pageant's rule that mothers cannot be named to the coveted post: A39

• A SURVEY SHOWS that an increasing number of high-school seniors used the Internet this year to gather information on colleges: A25

• BATES COLLEGE PROVIDES an on-line chat room for prospective students: A25

• MOUNT HOLYOKE COLLEGE STUDENTS are protesting a plan to drop the campus's three chaplains: A6

• DALTON COLLEGE'S student-run Literary Society will hold a reading of Allen Ginsberg's poem "Howl," as long as there are no small children in the audience: A6

• A PROTEST ERUPTED into a brawl at Yale University after Asian-American students accused a visiting speaker of racism: A6

• AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI at Columbia, students donated a record amount of blood: A8

ATHLETICS

• NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY has rejected an application by the U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican to be its athletics director: A41

• AN AGRONOMIST at the University of California at Riverside has invented a machine that mimics the effect of golf shoes on putting greens: A41

OPINION & LETTERS

NEW DIRECTIONS FOR THE HUMANITIES
Cultural biography can bridge and strengthen fields that were once distant from one another, such as criticism and history, writes David S. Reynolds, a professor of English at Baruch College and the Graduate School of the City University of New York: B4

MAKING THE STRANGE FAMILIAR
The academic study of religion can help us resist the temptation to regard the members of the Heaven's Gate cult as deranged or evil, says Mark W. Muesse, an associate professor of religious studies at Rhodes College: B6

A CURMUDGEON NO LONGER?
Daphne Patai, a professor of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, has long criticized the administration of her university for embracing political correctness, but now she sees a method in the madness: B8

• MARGINALIA: A6

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