by P.D. Lesko

AS COLLEGE STUDENTS look over lists of fall classes, this much is clear: These aren't your parents' course catalogues. Multicultural studies have grown, to the despair of neoconservatives who decry them as politically correct nonsense. There also are more technology-related classes and courses exploring traditional subjects in nontraditional ways. We found these examples of unconventional offerings.

THE BARD MEETS DILBERT. School: Columbia University Business School. Name of course: "In Search of the Perfect Prince" Description in course catalogue: "I [the instructor] believe one can learn more about leadership from reading Shakespeare's plays than from reading most modern tomes on the subject. . . . We will identify, try to understand, and debate the issues that Shakespeare poses for us. We will apply what we have learned to better understand today's world. Whom should we trust? Whom should we believe? Whom should we follow? And why? . . . "We will address leadership in the context of MBA entry positions, middle managers and entrepreneurs. Along the way, we will discuss and debate greed, arrogance, scotoma, inattention, hesitance, lust, ambition, lying, cheating and stealing. We will discuss why people are fired‹and kings are beheaded. We will learn why battles and customers are won and lost. We might even learn why some company stocks skyrocket and then plummet. Any serious Shakespeare scholar would have shorted Sunbeam stock long before it fell from 55 to 27."

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