Some national initiatives taken by the Department of Education to demonstrate its commitment to international education are discussed. What is needed is a conscious effort to overhaul the educational experience by taking a fresh look at existing curricular offerings, at textbooks, at syllabi, and at the quality of language teaching. (MLW)

The loss of balance among the functions of the research university (instruction, basic and applied research, and professional training and service) produces a crisis of values. Many of the university's problems can be traced to this disequilibrium. Without increasing the value placed on teaching, curricular reform will be ineffectual. (MSE)

The ethics involved in a man's teaching of women's studies and the value of involving males in women's studies are discussed. A continued absence of male students in women's studies classes, it is suggested, will undermine the effort of women's studies teachers to secure a place in the academic world. (MLW)

The future demands a renewal of community and a curriculum that will counteract the excesses of individualism and broaden social visions, suggest these authors. This article is adapted from a forthcoming book and emphasizes the need for a curriculum that deals with the American heritage and the university's role in it. (Editor/LBH)

Harvard's recommendation of a core curriculum is examined and related to the general status of American higher education. It is suggested that the Harvard curriculum offers insight into the crisis faced by academe, and that the so-called reforms reveal failures of imagination and will and offer too little too late. They fail to examine the…

Joseph Perkins argued in the "Wall Street Journal" that one-third of the 100 traditionally Black colleges should become two-year institutions. This rebuttal suggests that Black institutions' survival involves planning for new and broader missions in an unsheltered, integrated, competitive environment. (MLW)

The appropriate response of higher education, and liberal arts colleges in particular, to demands for career training in addition to liberal arts studies is addressed. Cooperative efforts with trade unions to serve the educational needs of organized labor are suggested as a first step. (JMD)

Ernest Boyer traced the cause of many of higher education's problems to the fragmented nature of the college experience. Boyer's concept of the New American College had three priorities, all rooted in American higher education traditions: clarifying the curriculum; connecting to the world beyond the classroom; and creating a campus community.…

Excerpts from a fictional academic dean's letters to a colleague and friend give insight into a college administrator's struggle to make sense of the institution's investments in technology and to find the best way to use emerging technology to improve curriculum and instruction. (MSE)

The need for education concerning societal issues with technological components persists, as does the need for education of engineers relevant to the public sector and the public interest. The need for evaluation of technology and public policy programs is emphasized. (MLW) '

Changes in faculty and students, the dichotomy between "liberal" and "useful" education, and ways to modify the curriculum and disseminate results are among areas considered. (MSE)

The Sloan Foundation's New Liberal Arts Program aims to make a fundamental transformation in the liberal arts curriculum, by infusing applied mathematics and technological literacy. The program is examined by the president of Wellesley College in the context of current philosophical and practical constraints in higher education. (MSE)

Colleges and universities must do more to prepare graduates to deal with serious environmental challenges. The decline in environmental quality presents higher education with an opportunity to create a truly interdisciplinary curriculum, revitalize pedagogy, and redesign the campus to reduce cost, lower environmental impact, and help catalyze…

The University of California at Berkeley's substantial reorganization of the biological sciences due to internal and external needs is chronicled, focusing on the coordinated efforts of the institution and the strong, supportive leadership of the chancellor. The story is presented as an unusual case of institutional leadership within a highly…

Describes the Pew Charitable Trusts' Pew Leadership Award for revitalization and reform in higher education and summarizes characteristics of the 45 nominated institutions. The institutions develop portfolios documenting accomplishments in the areas of curriculum redesign, faculty roles and responsibilities, and resource reallocation. Profiles the…