In the coming years, the Corporation will continue, with some shift of emphasis, much of the work begun previously, while making substantial changes in direction as outlined below. The new program headings will be Education, International Peace and Security, International Development, and Democracy. Special Projects will continue as a vehicle for making grants outside the regular program areas and for encouraging cross-program collaboration. Within and across the four main areas, we will once again be engaged with major issues confronting higher education. Domestically, priority will be given to the reform of teacher education and to examining the current status and future of liberal arts education in the United States. In our international programs, ways will be sought to strengthen higher education and public libraries in Commonwealth Africa. As a cross-program initiative, and in cooperation with other foundations and organizations, we plan to assist scholars, particularly in the social sciences and humanities, in the independent states of the former Soviet Union.

The Education program will be concerned with formal education from preschool through the undergraduate experience. In addition to the aforementioned higher education programs, we will build on the foundation's previous work in early childhood education and child care, turning our attention to the goal of broadening access to high-quality services. At the elementary and secondary level, special attention will be given to the urgent need for upgrading the quality of education in urban public school districts and to finding leaders who can reform schools and improve achievement.

Under the rubric of International Peace and Security, the emphasis will be on Russia and some of the former states of the Soviet Union. It is our firm belief that the outcome of events there will be fundamental to the world's future. The nonproliferation of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons will also be of central concern, as will the roots of current and future conflict.

Within International Development, we will attempt to strengthen a limited number of Commonwealth African universities to serve as models of successful transformation; assist the cause of women's higher education there, and position selected African public libraries for the information age. The foundation will also support a few small-scale projects to examine the rule of law in Africa and ways African universities can assist in developing skilled manpower for entrepreneurship.

Under the Democracy program, we will continue our support of research and dissemination on electoral reform, concentrating on campaign finance issues at the state and local levels and efforts to improve the tenor of campaigns. We will also support examination of the social, economic, and political consequences of a widened income gap in America and studies of intergroup relations (ethnic, racial, and religious), including the educational and cultural needs of older Americans. The overall aim will be to reengage Americans with our democracy and with democratic institutions and to strengthen our common ground.

In the planning stages is a new Carnegie Fellowship Program with the specific goal of assisting budding and, where appropriate, established scholars whose research will contribute or illuminate the subject areas that are within the programmatic priorities of the Corporation. Finally, a 21st Century Fund has been created as a mechanism for commemorating Andrew Carnegie's library benefactions and providing one-time support for other causes. The following sections elaborate on the ideas behind the new programs and describe them in more detail.