Listing off course. (Editor's Note).

LAST WEEK, I WAS WORKING ON THE EDIT OF THE PUBLIC AGENDA report on Brown University's Futures Project (page 32), when I came across a statement made by a faculty member: "We are all being evaluated by some journalist somewhere who then publishes a ranking list. Everyone says it is a terrible measure and then says, "Look how we did!' "

I felt a ping! inside my brain when I read the words "some journalist," and all day long, something pawed at my insides, like a cat at a door, trying to get out. That night, I had a terrible dream ...

It was 1983, and I was a young business journalist again, trying hard to become invisible at my corner of a story-meeting table on what felt like a Monday morning. The surroundings looked familiar (paper coffee cups littered about, reporter pads, pencils, clippings, hardening doughnuts), yet strange at the same time. What was this place? I worked here, I knew, but which magazine was it? And who were these people? They glanced at me as casualty as they would a chair, and, indeed, I felt as though I knew them, too. So why was it that I didn't recognize anyone?

Just then, a somewhat disheveled but overconfident man appeared on the scene, plumped an issue in front of us, placed his palms squarely on the table edge, and leaned in toward all present, his eyes glimmering with some brilliant new idea. Ah--the editor, I thought.

"I've got it," he declared. "I've got the new feature idea that's going to save this book. We're going to tell people which colleges ate the best colleges in the country." He picked up the magazine on the table and waved it about, its pages flapping in the air. "We've done best places to live, best jobs, best everything else. Now we're going to print an issue about the best schools to send your kids to. Three months from now, folks, this cover's going to read, U.S. Information's `Best American Colleges'--got that?"

"But how're we going to do that?" ventured a pale young editor who looked only slightly senior to me. Our rumpled leader turned and glared at him.

"What the hell difference does it make how we do it?" he snarled. "We just do it, that's all. We'll come up with something! It'll be like creating `designer' schools--two years from now, everyone will be clamoring to send their kids to the schools we name as best. Think of the power!" As he laughed maniacally, I felt my dream darken. Low clouds of doom began to roll across the room. He went on.

"There's no end to where we can go with this thing," he said, as he circled the table, eyeing us all, and making me feel like Custer at his last stand. "Just think of it," he ranted; "we'll start with the elite schools this year, turning one against the other. Then next year, we'll bring on the wannabes and give them a taste of who's gonna make it, and who's not. After that, it'll be the grad schools--law, medicine, business. Why, there's no telling where this can go!"

"We'll bump up the circulation for the issue!" shrilled one editor, obviously an up-and-comer. "We can even plan a peripheral down the line--maybe a softcover book product!"

"Yes, YES!" shrieked our boss, and I could swear I saw dollar signs glinting in his eyes. The adrenaline level in the room was quickly peaking; editors were chattering at one another, scribbling ideas on notepads, sliding sheets of paper back and forth across the table. Moving up through the din, I heard a tiny voice, and wondered where it came from. As the motion around me stopped, and all eyes turned in my direction, I realized it was my own little warble, fighting to be heard.

"Couldn't something like this change the whole direction of higher education?" I asked.

Nobody said a word.

"Look," a Miss Second in-Command finally offered, "You remember what happened when we did the `Best Places to Live' story? Chambers of commerce from all over the country called us, falling all over themselves to find out how to get bumped up on the list. Hey, they dropped low-cost initiatives for the homeless, just so they could throw more dollars into attracting new home buyers and commercial investors. That was their decision, sister, not ours. If they didn't want to play the game, no one was twisting their arm."

"It just s-seems to me--" I stammered.

"DO YOU WANT TO WORK HERE, OR DON'T YOU?" bellowed our leader.

My dream ended there. I woke up drenched in sweat, my heart banging away. Then I padded down the hall to get myself a cup of tea. As I sat at my kitchen table in the wee hours of the morning, I felt my heart rate return to normal, but a shroud of uneasiness just wouldn't lift. I am a publishing executive, I reminded myself. I should know if such a nightmare could really take place, shouldn't I? A single, unscrupulous editor couldn't actually change the face of higher education so recklessly, could he?

Hey, listen: You didn't hear this from me.

You can reach Kathy Grayson at [e-mail].