Reviews eight recently published reports focusing on affirmative action in higher education. Discusses the following topics: (1) college admission policies; (2) minority student performance on the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT); (3) school desegregation; and (4) minority group teachers. (FMW)

Investigates factors contributing to difficulties faced by China's female college graduates seeking a job. Suggests publicizing the idea of women's liberation while increasing the training of women, correcting the expectations of the traditional role, eliminating the idea of child rearing as a personal matter, and protecting women in the course of…

Recent recruiting efforts for minority college faculty have amounted to little more than musical chairs, with campuses focusing on hiring minority professors away from each other. Minority-group members need to be steered into undergraduate programs and into graduate school. (MLW)

Describes a program at Washtenaw Community College, Michigan, to upgrade the basic skills of women and minority students and provide the academic support needed for success in high technology occupational training programs. Examines the following program components: academic progress, counseling, peer support, financial aid, and advocacy. (DMM)

Describes a nationwide study of the percentage of minority faculty employed full-time at community colleges and strategies used to recruit them. Suggests that successful strategies include placing minorities on the board of trustees, recruiting from industry, and hiring minority faculty as chief academic administrators and ethnic studies…

Argues that affirmative action for women and minorities works well, continues to be necessary, and benefits the country. Race- and gender-conscious remedies have proved essential and remain so. Recent assaults on affirmative action mean that national leaders must do a better job of educating the public. (SLD)

Maintains that affirmative action hiring policies play a key and unstudied role in adult lives. Reports on a study of 115 full-time faculty at a state university and a community college. Finds that faculty members' moral reasoning complexity played a significant role in solving an affirmative action issue. (CFR)

Provides information showing that under a race-blind admissions policy at institutions of higher education, blacks would still be largely excluded from the nation's highest-ranked universities. The paper illustrates how admissions policies based on socioeconomic status and entrance examination scores would largely benefit white and Asian students…

A telephone survey of 1,170 African-American, Hispanic, and white 15 to 24 year olds found 50 percent saw race relations as "generally bad." Whites and minorities differed on perceptions of racial discrimination and affirmative action. Results confirm college administrators' feelings that racial division and intolerance persist on campus. Groups…

Without an institutional research office to look at recruitment and retention programs, DePauw University (Indiana) relies heavily on institutional trend data and comparative information to assess the effectiveness of three initiatives: recruitment of large numbers of minority students, strategic use of financial aid, and use of market…

Describes initiatives developed in Connecticut to increase minority participation in higher education, including the Minority Enrollment Incentive Program, Urban Marketing Initiative, Greater Hartford Community College's Hispanic Family Support and Pre-Nursing programs, Norwalk Community College's English as a Second Language program, high school…

Provides an annotated bibliography of ERIC documents and journal articles on community college efforts to enhance minority participation and success, focusing on access, recruitment, retention, transfer, leadership, and revitalization efforts. (DMM)

Argues in support of affirmative action in college and university admissions, noting the actual, relatively small effect of affirmative action on white admission and opportunity, and suggesting other possible reasons for the heated debate. Notes two related Supreme Court decisions made a century apart and reviews statistical studies in support of…

Studies on race-based admissions, sports and sex, and religion and drugs suggest that: affirmative action policies were successful regarding college admissions; boys who play sports are more likely to be sexually active than their peers, with the opposite true for girls; and religion is a major factor in whether teens use cigarettes, alcohol, and…

Researchers at Educational Testing Service and elsewhere are devising methods that could help admissions officers measure educational disadvantage more systematically. One system identifies "strivers," any student scoring more than 200 points above the average score of peers with similar backgrounds, taking into account 14 variables such…