Impact

Non-university scholarly research aided

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is expanding its support for scholars doing research at the nation's archives, libraries and other research centers not affiliated with universities. Chairman Sheldon Hackney announced Sept. 21 an increase from $900,000 to $2.5 million in 1997 in grants to the nation's approximately 30 such scholarly institutions to pay for research in history, literature, philosophy, the classics, jurisprudence and other disciplines. The increase comes despite a 36 percent cut in the NEH's budget. Hackney called it "nourishing the roots" of academic research.

Let's get out of the ranking business

According to "The Chronicle of Higher Education," students at Stanford University want to force "U.S. News and World Report" out of the college-ranking business. The students, along with many others in higher education, claim the rankings are arbitrary and wield more influence than they should. The student group has asked for help from students from 20 other institutions, including this year's top five in the magazine's recent survey. The group's reasoning is that, if all the top schools refuse to send in requested data, the rankings will be discredited.

Research shouldn't bear burden of cuts

Association of American Universities President Cornelius Pings sent a letter last month to U.S. Secretary of Defense William Perry urging that university-based research programs not bear a disproportionate share of the defense reductions called for in the recently enacted FY'97 omnibus appropriations bill.

Section 8136 of that legislation provided for a total of $674.91 million in undistributed cuts to Research, Development, Testing and Evaluation accounts, and Sections 8037(h) and 8138 call for further cuts that will also affect RDT&E programs.

University of California System President Richard Atkinson also wrote Perry and asked that basic research programs be exempted altogether from these cuts.

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