What was going on when I was born?

On his inauguration yesterday as 17th president of Columbia University, Michael I. Sovern declared that the school intended to be a "caring partner" for its neighbors and the city.

BEIRUT, Lebanon, Sept. 28--President Saddam Hussein of Iraq said tonight that he would welcome a cease-fire with Iran and was prepared to hold direct negotiations with Teheran to settle their dispute, but he again demanded territorial concessions that Iran has repeatedly rejected.

ABDALI, Kuwait, Sept. 28--Hundreds of immigrant workers who fled from the fighting between Iraq and Iran are camped in the open at this border post, waiting for a way to get home.

An unusual and unexpected teacher shortage is developing in school districts across the country at the very time that many of those districts are experiencing declining enrollments and fiscal constraints that are forcing layoffs.

Negotiations between the Metropolitan Opera and its orchestra broke off at 9 P.M. yesterday, with increasingly likely prospects that the company will announce the cancellation of its 1980-81 season today.

An experimental vaccine against hepatitis B has been shown to give virtually complete protection against the viral liver infection, which is common throughout the world, according to results of a study by researchers at the New York Blood Center.

WASHINGTON, Sept. 28--Developing countries pressed today for a substantial increase in their share of world credit and a greater say in the institutions that disburse it--the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

WASHINGTON, Sept. 28--Poverty is declining in the United States, in small cities and rural areas, in the suburbs and in growing metropolitan areas--everywhere except in the large central cities that have been losing population, and there it is increasing.

MEXICO CITY, Sept. 28--Rather than welcoming the son of emigrants who went north of the border and did well, Mexico is having trouble adjusting to the first Mexican-American to become United States Ambassador here.

KEMPTEN, West Germany, Sept. 28-- Helmut Schmidt the statesman hid over the weekend while the politician took over for two days of beer-tent campaigning.

HAMBURG, West Germany, Sept. 26-- As the campaign for West Germany's national elections draws to a close, Chancellor Helmut Schmidt and his opponent, Franz Josef Strauss, have turned their attention to a previously neglected element: older voters.

BONN, Sept. 28--The West German federal prosecutor said today that a member of a banned neo-Nazi paramilitary group was believed to have placed the bomb that killed 12 people and injured 144 at the Munich Oktoberfest Friday night.