Perley, the president of the AmericanAssociation of University Professors, says therehas been a tendency for all presidents to be lessvisible.
"There's a trend nationally for presidents tobe more concerned with managements of theirinstitutions than being idea people," Perley says.
Some say that a number of issues affectinghigher education have been set by the wayside.
The president of one interest group says hisorganization has been forced to step updramatically its own publicity efforts because"we're threatened, and there's [nobody] defendingus."
The result is a kind of shortsightedness, sayseveral people familiar with national educationissues.
"My own view is that if we don't speak outindividually and collectively, we deserve ourlosses," the interest group president says.
Many in the field call on university presidentsto broaden their horizons and speak out on agreater variety of issues.
In the past several months, Rudenstine says hehas focused Primarily on issues of student aid andresearch since those threats are the mostimmediate and serious.