This brief report summarizes a longer document with the same title. Many colleges and universities, in responding to public demand for higher education and the external challenges it creates, are employing Total Quality Management (TQM) techniques to improve quality, increase productivity, and decrease cost. The quality improvement process itself (the tools for problem identification and developing solutions), largely ignored in the past by academic organizations, is now being studied and applied. The TQM process involves the complete transformation to quality requiring top-level commitment followed by substantial and comprehensive reeducation of all personnel. In addition, the administration must develop a cooperative climate for change and recognize that the faculty play the most important role in developing the concept of continuous quality improvements and other ideas about TQM as they might apply to academic activity. The report examines what quality is and what it requires, the technical system and tools for improving quality, and the type of administrative system required to allow the quality process to be successful. Finally discussed is the process of improving academic quality in the curriculum and classroom, as well as its assessment, while looking towards the student as the beneficiary. Contains seven references. (GLR)