The Canadian Federation of Students' Access 2000 campaign is gearing up. "Thousands of people have signed the federation's petition calling for the restoration of social programme funding, a reduction in tuition fees and a federally coordinated system of needs-based grants," said CFS national chairperson Michael Conlon. "Public funding of post-secondary education is indispensable if genuinely autonomous thought and research is to flourish in Canada."

The increasing focus of colleges and universities on technical programs at the expense of the social sciences and humanities is not meeting the needs of the Canadian economy, a prominent economist says.

The federal Finance Committee tabled its final report in early December, calling on the government to devote the looming fiscal surplus almost entirely to tax cuts and debt reduction rather than repairing the damage done to Canada's social programs, including post-secondary education.

Author Neil Tudiver makes a tremendous contribution to our knowledge about the development of the Canadian university system. Advocacy and scholarship are integrated as we are taken through the dramatic changes in both the internal and external lives of our universities in the postwar period.

Trinity Western University is embroiled in a Supreme Court battle with the British Columbia College of Teachers (BCCT) over the college's denial of Trinity Western's application to have its teacher education program certified. The BCCT maintains Trinity's program philosophy is based on values that contradict human rights legislation and the public interest.

The recent decision of the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal finding Professor Donald Dutton of UBC responsible for sexual harassment shows there are officials in British Columbia who do not understand the difference between a university and a factory for handing out degrees and who equate sexual harassment with activities considered perfectly normal at some of the world's great universities.

The Canadian Forum recently published several pages of Ken McNaught's Conscience and History, mostly to do with the Harry Crowe case at Winnipeg's United College in 1958. McNaught's writing tempted me to a local book emporium. After an hour or so compulsively reading the book in the store, I gave in and bought it. I have no regrets, and recommend the work to Bulletin readers.