THE DOLLAR DIPLOMA

A satiric look at a large midwestern university, Fox, levels some acute criticisms of higher education today- and one of its lower achievements- the dollar diploma or the working ticket for a job. The advent of a new president there seems to usher out the old- namely its system of Individualized Education (or coddling eggheads)- and inject the possibility of bringing back football, and during a few weeks here spent with Berghof, its public relations, Director, Tom Mears, the editor of the University Press, and some of its doubletalking, triple thinking members of the faculty, a good many ideas and issues are kicked around. There is the importation of a pro- Communist French novelist and her assault on American culture which leads to a riot; the attempt to raise funds; a senate subcommittee investigation- none promoting the right ""corporate image"" before the works in progress are concluded... An entertaining writer, Mann pinpoints and needles many of the artifacts- and abstractions- of university life and his field work seems authoritative. It is too bad that he has the sketchiest of stories and only a few skeleton characters to go with it.