"You've got to know the shape of the river perfectly. It is all there is left to steer by on a very dark night." So begins Derek Bok and Dr. William Bowen's new book, The Shape of the River, one of the first books to demonstrate the power of race-sensitive admissions practices. The former presidents of Harvard and Princeton universities evoke the image of Mississippi riverboat pilots winding through fogs, slow eddies, and hidden bluffs.

Perhaps that is what 1998 felt like to those who fought to provide access to Blacks in higher education only to watch in dismay as 30 years of progress was dismantled by successful legal -- and voter -- challenges to affirmative action. Those challenges began, of course, two years ago with California's Proposition 209, which slowed the number of Blacks and Latinos admitted to the elite University of California campuses to a trickle.

This year, the movement gathered momentum as the battleground shifted to Washington State. Although affirmative action supporters appeared more organized and were better financed than their peers in California had been, opponents again won a decisive victory when voters passed Initiative 200.

Brusied and battered, supporters of affirmative action were again surprised when the struggle that has long been waged on university and graduate school turf shifted to the virgin terrain of public school districts. Students and

parents in Boston and Virginia -- among other places -- filed lawsuits saying they were unfairly denied admission to well-respected schools. In Boston late last month, a three-judge panel struck down the affirmative action policy at Boston Latin School, the city's most prestigious high school.

By the end of the year it was clear to many that the landscape had changed and that new strategies are needed to continue to ensure minority students access to the nation's colleges and universities.

"Those of us who are proponents [of affirmative action] have to clarify the terms of the debate and try to make it clear that it is not a question of preferences or of righting wrongs that happened in the mid-1800s," says Margaret Montoya, a professor of law at the University of New Mexico's School of Law.

Many veteran leaders in the fight for access opted either for retirement or a career change this year. Dr. Donald Stewart announced he will step down from the helm of the College Board next year and Dr. Reginald Wilson left his prestigious senior scholar position at the American Council on Education.

Yet observers say some of the new players who are emerging may prove ideal for these pragmatic times -- people like Drs. Belle Wheelan, the first African American woman to head Northern Virginia Community College, and Lee Pelton, the first Black president of Willamette University in Oregon.

However, faculty appointments like that of Dr. Steven L. Mayo -- the first Black tenured professor at the California Institute of Technology whose scholarly career is so clearly distanced from matters of race -- beg the question of whether scholars who do align themselves with racial issues will become further marginalized from the academy's most coveted positions. Certainly, many argued that this year's Justice Department probe of Dr. Luther Williams was a not-so-subtle attempt to get rid of him. Williams has successfully used NSF programs to create more opportunities for African Americans. But Ward Connerly, the Black California businessman, who was once the beneficiary of affirmative action programs, has become the father of the movement to roll back those efforts.

As 1999 approaches, perhaps these new leaders will be like the Mississippi riverboat pilots Bok and Bowen wrote about so eloquently in their book. The pilots of the educational process who had to "know every depth, every deceptive shoal, and every hidden snag of the river" to continue the fight to ensure access to education for all.

The following is a recap of the higher education highlights of 1998:

Politics and Personalities

* President Clinton's national advisory board on race concluded its work in 1998 with little of the fanfare that accompanied the group's creation in 1997. The seven-member panel held meetings nationwide, but most experts believed the panel did not help build a stronger national consensus for affirmative action in higher education and other settings. The board could not be effective, many said, because President Clinton and the media were sidetracked by the Monica Lewinsky scandal, and members had to defend themselves against charges that they ignored opposing voices. (April 30, 1998)

* Congress passed a massive bill to extend the life of the Higher Education Act. The act includes provisions to lower student loan interest rates and increase the maximum allowable Pell Grant. The hill also included major changes in funding for institutions that primarily serve students of color. (May 28, 1998)

* Middle- and high-school students may get a leg up on a college education thanks to a new program that will provide information and mentoring services to low-income students. Congress included $120 million for the GEAR-UP program, which was introduced by Rep. Chaka Fattah (D-Pa.), who noted that although the federal government offers a wealth of college financial aid, many low-income students never know about it. (Nov. 26, 1998)

* Under a new remedial policy approved in May, students who fail one or more of the university's placement exams in reading, writing, and math will no longer be allowed to enroll at The City University of New York's senior colleges. Critics of the plan filed a lawsuit to keep CUNY officials from dropping remedial classes from the curriculum. (Sept. 3, 1998)

* Despite the efforts of opponents, Washington state voters passed the anti-affirmative action Initiative 200, which would prohibit the government from considering race, sex, color, or national origin in college admissions and state contracting decisions. Initiative 200 marked the second big victory for foes of affirmative action since California passed Proposition 209 in 1996. (Nov. 26, 1998)

* The U.S. Court of Appeals Court ruled that Boston Latin School, an elite Boston public high school, violated the rights of a White applicant by using admissions criteria that rejected her by while admitting some minority students with lower test scores and grades. Affirmative action supporters fear the ruling could undermine legal defenses that many universities make to use racial preferences to admit students. (Dec. 10, 1998)

* A group of attorneys, civil rights leaders, and law students demonstrated outside the U.S. Supreme Court to protest the lack of minority law clerks working for the justices who preside over the highest court in the land. Of the 34 Supreme Court law clerks hired for the coming term, there is only one minority--a Latino. (Oct. 15, 1998)

* Central State University, Ohio's only public historically Black university, has taken several giant steps on the road to renewal, including having its accreditation renewed and the lifting of a burdensome U.S. Department of Education penalty. Central State officials also regained financial control of the university from state budget officials who had stepped in a year earlier when the university fell into a financial crisis. (Sept. 3, 1998)

* Dr. Donald Stewart, the first African American president of the College Board, announced that he will resign from his post next fall and spend a year as a visiting scholar at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. (Oct. 15, 1988)

* Dr. Reginald Wilson, who has been known as higher education's voice for minority affairs, left the American Council on Education, for a one-year visiting professorship at the University of Texas-Austin. Wilson, who once headed ACE's Office of Minority Concerns and created its influential Annual Status Report on Minorities in Higher Education, also served as a leader in the effort to sensitize ACE and the broader higher education community to diversity issues. (March 5, 1998)

* Former Virginia Gov. L. Douglas Wilder accepted, then rejected, the presidency of Virginia Union University. His decision to step down followed a controversy that ensued when he requested the resignation of 11 of the school's top administrators. Wilder, the nation's first African American governor, had accepted the post in June and would have taken over in August. Meanwhile, a replacement has yet to be named. (Aug. 8, 1998)

* Dr. Luther S. Williams, assistant director for education and human resources at the National Science Foundation, settled a lawsuit against him charging that he had accepted honoria for speeches that were a part of his official duties. Williams, the key architect of NSF programs aimed at creating more opportunities for African Americans in the fields of science and technology, agreed to pay $24,000 and will remain in his job. (Aug. 6, 1998)

* Dr. Belle Wheelan, was appointed president of Northern Virginia Community College, one of the largest community college systems in the country. In her previous job, as president of Central Virginia Community College, she became the first African American woman to head an institution of higher education in that state. (May 28, 1998)

* After nearly 12 years at the helm of Lincoln University, Dr. Niara Sudarkasa resigned this September under a cloud of controversy. Her resignation followed a critical report from the state Auditor General's Office that blamed her and other top Lincoln officials for a pattern of mismanagement and financial irregularities, charges which she denied. (Oct, 1, 1998)

* Dr. Marie V. McDemmond of Norfolk State University, also came under fire in 1998. Soon after she became president, critics charged that she spent $200,000 on renovations to her residence while the university had a $4 million defecit. But McDemmond said the problems began before she arrived. (Sept. 3, 1998)

* Dr. Edward B. Fort, out-going chancellor of North Carolina AT&T State University, has been named chairman of the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education (NAFEO). Fort also announced that this would be his last year at A&T, ending his 17-year term as that institution's president. (Aug. 6, 1998)

* Dr. Stephen Leon Mayo became the first African American to win tenure at the California Institute of Technology, one of the most elite technical universities in the world. Mayo, who was first appointed assistant professor of biology at the institute in 1992, works in the relatively new field of structural biology. (Oct. 15, 1998)

* Dr. James Hill became the first African American vice president appointed at the University of Texas during its 115-year history. Hill's appointment comes at a time when minority enrollment is declining at the university after a court-ordered ban on the use of race-sensitive admissions. (Oct. 15, 1998)

Technology

* FCC commissioners voted to scale back the "e-rate"--the special discounts designed to connect primary and secondary schools and public libraries to the information highway--after major corporations lobbied successfully for relied from some of the law's requirements. Though authorized to allocate up to $2.25 billion in annual discounts, the commission decided to make $1.92 billion available for the 98-99 fiscal year. In the first and second wave of e-rate allocations, a total of $148 million in commitments were made to schools and libraries around the country. (Aug. 20, 1988)

* Two education information and CAUSE merged to form a new technology organizations, EDUCOM organization, which will target underserved institutions, including colleges that serve a large number of minority students. (Nov. 12, 1998)

* Microsoft and a team of scholars working under Harvard University professors Henry Louis Gates Jr. and K. Anthony Appiah introduced Microsoft Encarta Africana, a CD-ROM of the history, geography, and culture of Africa and people of African descent. (Sept. 3, 1998)

Financial Matters

* Syndicated disc jockey/comedian Tom Joyner raised $150,000 for Black colleges through the Tom Joyner UNCF Black College Fund. Joyner, a Tuskegee University graduate, chooses a different college every month to receive the funds raised by the foundation. "I've enjoyed a lot of success in my life, and this is just one way to help others," Joyner told Black Issues. (Oct. 29, 1998)

* The College Fund/UNCF officials and members of 100 Black Men Atlanta got into a war of words over whether the men's support group could solicit funds on behalf of UNCF member institutions, including Dillard University. In the end, UNCF won, with Chairman Bill Gray asserting that member institutions could do whatever they wanted, but those violating their agreement with the College Fund would do so at the risk of their UNCF membership. (Oct. 1, 1998)

* The Lily Endowment Inc. awarded a $42 million, three-year grant to The College Fund/UNCF to help Black colleges build more laboratories, provide more scholarships, and endow more chairs. The gift is the largest ever given to a single entity by the foundation in its 61-year history.

* Hampton University launched its $200 million capital campaign, the largest ever mounted by an historically Black college, and announced that it had already received $110 million in commitments. Hampton's goal is to break an HBCU record of $114 million raised in 1996 by Spelman College. (Nov. 12, 1998)

* Central State University, Ohio's only public historically Black university, has taken several giant steps on the road to recovery, including having its accreditation renewed and the lifting of a burdensome U.S. Department of Education penalty. Central State officials also regained financial control of the university from state budget officials (Sept. 3, 1998)

* Johnson C. Smith University raised $63 million during its five-year capital campaign, the second largest campaign completed by any HBCU in the nation. (Oct. 29, 1998)

Books

Among the many publications released this year to contribute to the debate on minority access to higher education, four stand out:

* The Shape of the River: Long Term Consequences of Considering Race in College and University Admissions, is the latest salvo in the debate over affirmative action. Written by two former university presidents, it documents that racial preferences at top colleges and universities have helped African-Americans get ahead. Authors Derek Bok, former president of Harvard University, and Dr. William G. Bowen, former president of Princeton University, tracked the progress of students at 28 selective colleges and found that affirmative action policies worked. (Oct. 1, 1998)

* America in Black and White: One Nation, Indivisible, written by Harvard history professor Stephan Thernstrom and his wife, Abigail, a senior fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute, concludes that race-conscious affirmative actions policies are a failure. "The serious inequality that remains is less a function of white racism than of the racial gap in level of educational attainment, the structure of the black family, and the rise in black crime," the couple writes. (Jan. 8, 1998)

* In September, The Southern Education Foundation released its much-anticipated report Miles To Go, The study, which examined higher education state-by-state, concluded that despite more than two decades of hard-fought desegregation efforts, African American students in the south have enjoyed only meager gains in access to public four-year institutions. (Sept. 17, 1998)

* Following in the path of U.S. News & World Report's annual college ranking, the editors and publisher of Black Enterprise and a professor from Johns Hopkins University unveiled their ranking of the top 50 colleges for African American students. Spelman and Morehouse topped the list, with Stanford University being the only traditionally White institution to make the top 10. (Dec. 24, 1998)

Students

* While the number of White students receiving college degrees has stayed steady for the past five years, the number of African-American, Hispanic, Asian, and Native American degree recipients has soared, according to the Black Issues Top 100 Degree Producers. The number of African-Americans receiving bachelor's degrees is increasing at a rate of 5.6 percent a year. (July 9, 1998)

* While the aggregate number of minority students attending Texas colleges did not change dramatically in the year following Hopwood, many fewer were admitted by the state's most elite institutions. (May 14, 1998)

* The first undergraduate class admitted to the University of California-Berkeley after the state passed Prop. 209 had 1,079 fewer minority students for its fall class, with the most substantial decline occurring among African-American students. Berkeley turned away 800 minority students who had SAT scores of 1200 or more and GPAs of 4.0. Though not as extreme, similar decreases in minority admissions were found at U.C.-Los Angeles. (April 16, 1998)