AMONG the crowds of holiday -- visitors to the Exhibition Center in the TIME & LIFE Building these days, many people will find the show familiar. By now, it is almost as much a part of the season in Manhattan as the great tree that is decorated every December around the corner in Rockefeller Plaza. Year after year, people come back to see the Nativity as portrayed by Renaissance masters--25 color photographs of delicate accuracy, blown up to the size of the originals. Carols from the 15th to the 18th century provide background music, and visitors can also listen to a taped commentary on Renaissance art.

The Christmas Show was first opened to the public in 1960. It has been brought back every year except one: in 1967 it was replaced by a collection of papier-mache animals. The complaints from longtime fans were so numerous that there are no plans to change the exhibit again.

Dissenting students are no novelty these days. Campuses across the country are roiled by sit-ins, lockouts, strikes and old-fashioned riots. But who would believe that there really is a college where undergraduates are loudly protesting long-haired professors, women teachers in miniskirts and a liberal president who is determined to give his students more freedom than they have ever known? For that surprising story of collegiate controversy, see EDUCATION, Protest in Reverse.

Such odd and offbeat problems are constantly cropping up in the week's news. For TIME'S editors they often offer the unexpected angle or provoke the added insight that can give a story new vitality. A sampling from this week's issue:

> Where and why was the world's most famous smile replaced by a tragic clown? See ART, Final Masquerade.

> What famous international spy plays the lute and the classical guitar, and likes to boast that he once sketched a portrait of President John Kennedy that his brother Bobby requested as a present? See THE WORLD, Advice to Young Spies.

>Where was a 17-year-old lawbreaker startled to discover that his yearlong sentence was "kinda fun?" See RELIGION, Serving on Sunday.

> Why are scientists who are studying human heredity dissecting nine-banded armadillos? See SCIENCE, Multiplying by Four.

> In what remote corner of the U.S. did the residents celebrate Easter by nailing a member of their religious sect to a cross? See THE NATION, The Agony of Tierra Amarilla.

> Who is the character who bounces around in knee pants and Buster Brown collar and talks with God about his rasping racism? See THEATER, Laughing at Lester.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.