The National Science Foundation (NSF) is going to announce a major change in its patent policies that will allow qualifying institutions to be guaranteed in advance the royalties from faculty inventions that result from NSF projects. (Author)

The evidence indicates that the more research-oriented and institution is, the less receptive it is to collective bargaining. (Editor)

Reviews programs such as the Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning and literature on the scholarship of teaching at the higher education level. Suggests that the scholarship of teaching is not synonymous with excellent teaching, but requires faculty to "go meta," to systematically investigate questions of student learning.…

The author suggests that education researchers and supporters of research should be more modest about the potential of such research for solving all the problems of schools, colleges, and students. Priorities should include improving the quality of research, effecting demonstrably useful changes, and optimizing communication with policy makers.…

Discusses the Office of Science and Technology, the Office of Management and Budget, and Research Applied to National Needs of the National Science Foundation and their roles in determining policy during the period of steady-state in science. (PG)

Clark Kerr, the chairman of the Carnegie Council on Policy Studies in Higher Education, conducted a conference concerning their first major report. The council's main thrusts in this report are universal access and maintenance of the research capacity of the universities. (Author/PG)

Work on financial indicators for colleges and universities aimed at clarifying perception and making judgments of financial distress more credible is seen as deserving serious attention. But the use of indicators as a management tool is seen as questionable. (MLW)

The president of Dartmouth College (New Hampshire) discusses campus cultural pluralism, the need for diversity in higher education, overcoming resistance to change, techniques for supporting a diverse student population, monitoring diversity through institutional research, and the issue of "political correctness" in higher education…

Noting that junior college institutional research is being affected by two major influences--changing student populations and information demands of state and federal agencies--the author suggests specific questions for research important to college operations and emphasizes the need to reconcile the frequently contradictory internal and external…

A report examining the conditions facing Williams College in the 1980s is excerpted. The committee was to emphasize strategies to serve two major institutional goals: maintaining a large pool of well-qualified applicants, and maintaining a faculty that is talented, well compensated and professionally committed. (MLW)

Despite recent rejection of proposals for national reform of college accreditation, a well-established system of regional, voluntary self-regulation offers the best vehicle for correcting imbalance in educational quality assurance. The new Council for Higher Education Accreditation can help restore public faith in voluntary self-regulation by…

In 1979 Emory University became the recipient of the largest single endowment gift (from Coca-Cola's Robert Woodruff) to a college or university. Self-studies have been initiated to recommend improvements that will guide the allocation of the uncommitted funds. (MLW)

Given the enormous public and private investment required to produce physicians and scientists, higher education can not dismiss reports that it produces too many MDs and PhDs. Universities can help by assuring students have timely information about employment prospects. Further research is needed on recent graduates' career paths, foreign medical…