Assessing progress toward '12 dreams of christmas' in 1997. (The Last Laugh).

For subscribers who may recall the editor's outrageous predictions from January 1997 based on her crystal ball, here's the five-year assessment of progress.

1. Harvard University will demonstrate its commitment to diversity by naming a short, black, lesbian as president. Not yet, but women have gained presidencies at elite schools like Brown, Princeton, Penn, Duke, RPI, as well as state universities like Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio State, and many others. Women are now 21.1% of all college and university presidents.

2. AAHE will move its annual conference to Columbus OH for its flower show there. This unimaginative group continues to rotate its annual meetings between Chicago and Washington DC. No wonder Yolanda Moses will quit being executive director of AAHE to move to California.

3. ETS will abandon the controversial SAT and PSAT tests. Unfortunately the tests bring in too many millions of dollars for this group to kill the golden goose. They tinker with it, swaying a little this way and that to appease critics, but its monopoly remains.

4. Scientists will identify the gene for aggression that can be activated by a chemical before athletes play football, basketball and hockey games. Scientists have been so busy perfecting Viagra that this obvious need has been ignored. Teams continue to rely on old-fashioned drugs and coaches' pre-game rants for inspiration.

5. The U.S. Department of Justice will announce that date-rape is assumed unless the weaker member of the couple signs off. Not yet, but some enlightened campuses are concluding that women have not given consent for intercourse if they have passed out. The new Harvard policy requiring proof of rape before an investigation is being challenged in a complaint to the U.S. Department of Education's OCR.

6. Researchers will verify a suspected link between nocturnal cookies and milk and academic performance. Not yet, but they have found that study groups are a great way to enhance class performance, a secret which women have known all along.