INTERNATIONAL HIGHER EDUCATION 18 commission came up with a report proposing the cre- ation of an incredibly complex system of institutional evaluations and self-evaluations. While Provão did not disappear, it did become engulfed by the baroque com- plexity of the system. In addition, the report openly chal- lenged the previous policy of ranking institutions, although the arguments seem technically weak in the opinion of the author of this article. Provão was slated to almost disappear and be replaced by procedures requiring several committees and armies of experts to visit the programs. Whereas Provão involved the evaluation of results, the new policy is a return to the evaluation of the process, known to be highly vulnerable to politics, corruption, and influence. While there is nothing wrong in principle with institutional evaluation, the problem is that when the stakes are high, preventing fraud becomes a very complex and expensive process. The middle-of-the-road public reacted negatively to the report. But more importantly, the new minister, Cristovam Buarque, was not happy with the direction taken by the report. He openly declared to the press that he was in favor of ranking institutions and was focused on the need to have additional ways of evaluating higher education. Provão was slated to almost disappear. After a number of internal discussions, a new proposal was produced: keeping Provão but basing its results on samples, rather than on all students. The test would be administered every third year, instead of yearly. The new system would keep all the heavy institutional evaluation apparatus but allowed the Provão results to be presented separately. It also required that 30 percent of the questions be less narrowly focused on the specific programs—a definitely welcome change. Provão defenders—this author included—were not happy with the new guidelines even though they are not as disastrous as those produced by the initial committee. The new system introduces elements making fraud and manipulation much easier, while Provão was practically immune to any such problems. For better or worse, much has been left unstated and undecided in the new guidelines. The possibility remains that Provão will survive intact and, hopefully, prove to be effective But it may be watered down to the point where it loses its most useful features. Unfortunately, the minister has not taken a clear stand one way or the other. The Academic Profession in Brazil Elizabeth Balbachevsky and Denilde Oliveira Holzhacker Elizabeth Balbachevsky is associate professor in the Department of Politi- cal Science and senior researcher at the University of São Paulo Research Center in Higher Education. Denilde Holzhacker is a doctoral student in the Department of Political Science, at the University of São Paulo and assistant professor at Universidade Rio Branco. E-mail: balbasky@usp.br. B razilian society underwent drastic changes in the last decade of the 20th century. The opening up of the economy, a successful privatization program, and currency reform that put inflation under control for the first time in 30 years created a number of challenges for the Brazilian higher education system. In response, Brazilian authori- ties have introduced new evaluation instruments to up- grade the quality of undergraduate education and improve the academic profile of higher education institutions. The impact of these changes on the Brazilian higher education system as a whole was revealed in the data collected by the Brazilian Ministry of Education in a 1992 survey, spon- sored by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, as part of the International Academic Profes- sion Project. Ten years later, a second survey on the Brazil- ian academic profession, funded by the Ford Foundation, was conducted by the University of São Paulo’s higher education research unit. This second survey examined the impact the changes had on the working conditions of the academic profession in Brazil. To ensure comparability, the team responsible for the second survey followed the sampling guidelines produced by the Carnegie Foundation 10 years previously. Also the questionnaire used in the second survey retained some of the questions from the first survey, while adding new questions aimed at deepening the understanding of the interaction between professionals and their institutional environment and academics’ attitudes toward some relevant issues in Brazil’s higher education policy. The two surveys highlight important changes and continuities in the Brazilian academic profession. The profession’s demographic profile has changed little. The proportion of women in the Brazilian academic profession, already comparatively high in 1992, grew even more— increasing from 4 out of every 10 academics to 6 out of every 10 Brazilian academics. The academic profession remains a middle-aged profession. The average age of professors in Brazil was 43 years in 1992 and 45 years in 2003. Attaining an academic position represents an important upward mobility for a significant proportion of Brazilian academics. In fact, 30 percent of the academics interviewed in 1992 had fathers with only four