Contributors

CATHY BOOTH, TIME's Los Angeles bureau chief, has enjoyed such genial assignments as traveling to Australia to profile Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. This week, however, she shifts gears considerably to offer an affecting first-person account on the agonizing challenges of caring for an elderly parent. "It was very tough to write this story," says Booth of her contribution to our package on how best to tend to the older generation, which is growing dramatically. "I have to admit that at first I wasn't sure it was something I wanted to write, but I've been amazed at how little information is out there and how little discussion there is, as well as how many other people are going through this sort of trial." Booth observes that many people wish for more money to solve their dilemmas, but from her experience she can report, "Money doesn't solve the emotional part of it."

FRANK GIBNEY JR. joined the magazine in 1994 when he opened TIME's Vietnam bureau in Hanoi. In 1998, after a stint in Tokyo, he moved to New York to cover international business. But his experience as a U.S. correspondent also proved valuable last week when he wrote about the shootings at the North Valley Jewish Community Center. This week Gibney returns to business, scrutinizing the market issues that are forcing automobile companies to make design a strategic weapon. "I gained an appreciation for just how complicated it is to come up with any product that is both artful and appealing to consumers," Gibney says. "Designers are discovering with cars that if you look back at great models of the past, you'll find some inspiration for what will work in the future, and technological advances have made it possible to stretch the metal, glass and four-wheels idea beyond what anybody thought possible."

MATTHEW COOPER, who joined TIME only last month, has already had the unusual experience of being able to admire his photo in the magazine: last year, while he was still a national correspondent at Newsweek, he made our pages after winning a contest that crowned him Washington's Funniest Celebrity. The joke's on the Capitol, because his new job is working as TIME's deputy Washington bureau chief. Cooper will help shape coverage of the 2000 campaign while continuing to write about politics. Fortunately, this will not require complete sobriety. As demonstrated by his piece on George Bush in this week's Notebook section, Cooper is lending the humor he has honed as a stand-up comic. "Matt works in clubs in New York and Washington," says Jim Kelly, deputy managing editor. "The big plus for our readers is that they can enjoy him without springing for the two-drink minimum."

A Guide to Higher Learning

For the past four years, TIME, in collaboration with the Princeton Review, has produced a college guidebook titled THE BEST COLLEGE FOR YOU. The 2000 edition of the guide is now available on newsstands and in bookstores. Chock-full of information on what college is like and how to go about finding, applying to, getting into--and paying for--the best college for you, the guide also features the editors' choice for College of the Year.

The honor, which is intended not to anoint an institution as the best but rather to highlight admirable characteristics or programs other colleges might emulate, goes this year to the University of Southern California. Through one of the oldest and most extensive "service learning" programs in the country, U.S.C. has integrated its students and its academic programs into the community that surrounds its Los Angeles campus. Not only do more than half of U.S.C.'s students volunteer to work in the poorer neighborhoods near their school, but students in courses ranging from landscape architecture to dentistry also apply their knowledge toward solving community problems. Not every college in America has South Central L.A. as a laboratory, but almost every school can do more to help its immediate neighbors--and teach its students more in the process.