ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries


364

W A S H I N G T O N  H O T L I N E by Carol Henderson 
ALA Washington Office

In his opening address to the Second National ACRL Conference in Minnea­
polis on October 1, Dr. Thomas Melady, Assistant Secretary for Post-Secondary 
Education in the Department of Education, said that one of the Department’s 
major initiatives would be the work of the newly-established National Commis­
sion on Excellence in Education. Appointed by Secretary Terrel Bell as a 
response to the perceived decline in the quality of American education, the 
members of the commission will recommend ways to improve the achievement of 
students in schools, colleges and universities. Melady urged librarians to 
participate in the hearings the commission will conduct across the country.

The commission’s responsibilities include conducting a literature and data 
review and synthesis, comparing the education systems of several advanced 
countries with the U.S., studying the effect of postsecondary admission stan­
dards and course requirements on high school curricula and achievement, identi­
fying secondary schools whose students do exceptionally well in college as well 
as colleges and universities which hold to high admissions standards and have 
worked with high schools, reviewing relevant changes in American education and 
society during the past quarter century, and holding hearings and receiving 
testimony and expert advice.

Although the need for library resources and the role of library skills in 
improving the quality of education are not mentioned, these would be very ap­
propriate points for librarians to make at public hearings or in written 
testimony. The ALA Washington Office will continue to inform the library com­
munity of opportunities to provide input to the commission. In the meantime, 
academic librarians who are acquainted with or located at the home institutions 
of members of the commission may want to get in touch with them. A list of 
members follows:

David P . Gardner, President, University of Utah (chair);
Yvonne W. Larsen, President, San Diego Unified School District Board of 

Education (vice-chair):
William O. Baker, retired chairman of Bell Telephone Laboratories; member 

of the board. Council on Library Resources;
Anne Campbell, Commissioner of Education for Nebraska;
Emeral A. Crosby, Principal, Northern High School, Detroit;
Charles A. Foster, Jr., President, Foundation for Teaching Economics, San 

Francisco;
Norman C. Francis, President, Xavier University, New Orleans;
A. Bartlett Giamatti, President, Yale University;
Shirley Gordon, President, Highline Community College, Midway, Washington;
Robert V. Haderlein, President, National School Boards Association;
Gerald Holton, Professor of Physics and History of Science, Harvard;
Annette Y. Kirk, former high school teacher, Mecosta County, Michigan;
Margaret S. Marston, member, Virginia State Board of Education;
Albert H. Quie, Governor of Minnesota;
Francisco D. Sanchez, Jr., superintendent, Albuquerque Public Schools;
Glenn T. Seaborg, Chemistry Professor, University of California, Berkeley;
Jay Sommer, foreign language teacher, New Rochelle, New York;
Richard Wallace, principal, Lutheran High School East, Cleveland Heights, 

Ohio.

At the commission’s first meeting, October 9-10, it was obvious that their 
work ranked very high on Secretary Bell's priority list. He expects the com­
mission to complete its task and make its report to appropriate officials at 
the end of its 18-month lifespan, regardless of the fate of the Department of 
Education in the meantime.