A survey by the National Alumni Forum reveals that in only 23 of the nation's top 70 colleges must English majors take a courses on Chaucer, Milton or Shakespeare

Here are several descriptions from college catalogues of what passes for studies in English literature on campuses these days:

• Georgetown University offers several courses on detective fiction -- including "Detective Fiction As Social Critique," with forays into "the nuclear family, traditional masculine values and capitalist ideology."

• The University of Virginia offers seniors English seminars such as "RUBYs: Rich Urban Bikers," "Marketing Miss America" and "White Trash."

• Oberlin's "Seminar on Literary Theory and Criticism" contains what some might find a fixation on sexual practices, as well as "Republican family values."

The NAF report warns that: "This country cannot expect a generation raised on gangster films and sex studies to maintain its leadership in the world. Or even its unity as a nation."

Source: Editorial, "Higher Ed Sound and Fury," Investor's Business Daily, January 15, 1997.