M. Cecil Mackey, the president of Michigan State University hired by the school's trustees to be a tough, hard-nosed administrator, has been the center of controversy and criticism. Feuds with the alumni association, fiscal problems, working in Washington, the Tisch amendment, and mid-year raises for faculty are discussed. (MLW)

Alumni colleges, sometimes called learning vacations or vacation colleges, offer a classroom experience built around an intellectual theme with trips, workshops, sightseeing, and cultural excursions, and are packaged to include room and board. Examples of programs offered at various colleges are described. (JMD)

Over the past decade, deliberate efforts to "market" colleges and universities to specific audiences have gone from being a marginal--and somewhat suspect--activity in higher education to becoming a strategic imperative. Heightened competition for top students, increasing bottom-line pressures due to tuition discounting and comparative "shopping"…

Alumni who once played a prominent role in the university now have been made obsolete by the enthronement of instant gratification and fascination for relevance. (Editor/IR)

"Harvard Magazine," an alumni publication which entered the public market for national consumption in 1974, now has a circulation of 52,000 and a $100,000 annual deficit but hopes to be self-supporting by 1980. Rationale and format are described. (JT)

The case of a Saudi Arabian student admitted to Princeton illustrates practices of using the admissions process as a means of soliciting gifts for the university. Issues of academic standards, special admissions, and confidentiality are discussed. (LBH)

A wide range of approaches to fund raising in higher education institutions is reported. The nine references cover such topics as: coping with reduced resources in community colleges, administering charitable remainder trusts, annuity plans, capital fund drives, fund raising in public colleges, endowment earnings, foundations, and alumni support.…

Ranking American colleges, universities, and individual departments according to their academic quality is discussed. Six types of methodology used are identified: reputational rankings; faculty awards, honors, and prizes; citations in citation indexes; alumni achievements; scores of entering students on standardized tests; and institutional…

Issues in the question of a college or university hiring its own graduates as faculty are considered: productivity, inbreeding as a way of building specialty, occupational mobility, and overall contribution to institutional vitality. (MSE)

A Rollins College (Florida) professor's survey of alumni concerning their memories of the institution elicited vivid and specific character narratives about faculty, pointing up the important role of faculty in students' college experience. The narratives reflected students' discovery of the pleasure of ideas, realization of teachers' concern for…