Colegio Cesar Chavez, a bilingual educational community in Mt. Angel, Oregon, is a Chicano-oriented and administered college which evolved from financially troubled Mt. Angel College. The author traces its struggle to maintain and develop a liberal arts program to meet the needs of its student body, now 100. (JT)

Trends emerging from a new enrollment report by the National Institute of Independent Colleges and Universities (NIICU) indicate hard times ahead for colleges in the private sector. General economic recession and cuts in federal student financial aid have had an effect on enrollment. (MLW)

A former U.S. Commissioner of Education traces the personal influences that have made him an ardent champion of the small liberal arts college and offers some enterprising suggestions for keeping these colleges successful. (Editor/LBH)

Vassar's new president believes the college can change the face of American coeducation, but there will first have to be changes made within Vassar itself. Her social outlook and administrative abilities are discussed. (Editor/LBH)

The establishment of Kirkland College as the first independent women's college founded in the East since 1926 is reviewed with focus on its merger in 1978 into its parent institution, Hamilton College. Financial problems are cited and extreme differences in campus outlook are discussed. (LBH)

Ways that two history departments, one at a private university and the other at a state college, have coped with declining enrollment and the increased competition for students, funds, and faculty are described. (MLW)

Hampshire College, representing an innovative response to student discontent, and Amherst College, the exemplar of the liberal arts tradition, are compared. Seen from Amherst, Hampshire's curriculum is trendy, its standards lax, a remnant of California counterculture. From Hampshire, Amherst appears a bastion of cultural elitism and authoritarian…

Reed College, a small, liberal arts college with high academic distinction, is described. Faculty participate in virtually all policy decisions and are hired and promoted according to the quality of their teaching. Its finances are improved, but it is still underfinanced and too heavily dependent on tuition income. (MLW)

Alverno College, a Catholic liberal arts college for women with an enrollment of 1,100, instituted competency-based learning in 1973. Subsequent problems as well as benefits are addressed, along with a review of student and faculty attitudes toward the program and the school's president. (LBH)

College student population trends are analyzed and charted, including first-time freshmen as a percentage of all undergraduates, total student applications, mean total applicants by institution type, percentage of applicants accepted by institution type, percentage of accepted student enrolling by institution type, high school grades, and faculty…