At Earlham College, a liberal arts college with a Quaker heritage and an enrollment of 1200, department heads and administrators were surveyed to discover the perceived impact of federal regulation and legislation. Faculty were sent questionnaires; administrators were sent questionnaires followed up by interviews. The complaints registered were: (1) increasing amounts of time must be diverted from educational goals to monitoring regulations and to reporting; (2) the adversarial situation between faculty, administration, and students is heightened; (3) autonomy is lost; (4) the government becomes another constituency to which the institution must answer in curricular and policy development; and (5) duplication of effort occurs in reporting duties. However, impact is seen in other, less obvious places. The feeling of being able to solve problems privately is felt to be disappearing. Frustration is seen to stem from several sources: lack of dialogue with government agencies; lack of control over one's own fate; a felt decrease in effectiveness. It is concluded that the institution must resist the forces accompanying federal regulation that may tend to steer the institution toward a common median standard. (MSE)