April 20, 1982

Paul J. Curran, formerly a United States Attorney and chairman of the State Investigation Commission, said yesterday that he would run for Governor of New York. He said none of the three other Republican candidates had built up commanding support. ''I'm going,'' he said, and he predicted he would get the 25 percent vote at the state convention that would give him a place on the ballot in the September primary. ''Personally, I've always been very impressed with Paul Curran,'' said George L. Clark Jr., the Republican state chairman, but he noted that the three other candidates had a big head start. He said his count had shown a bit less than half the convention votes committed to James L. Emery, the Assembly minority leader; Lewis E. Lehrman, a businessman, and Richard M. Rosenbaum, the party's former state chairman.

As Shotaro Uchiyma sees it, a truly global company ought to be run from New York City - the financial and information capital of the world, he says. So the 66-year-old president of the Fujitec Company, the fourthlargest elevator maker in Japan, is moving his company's worldwide headquarters to 450 Park Avenue. Mr. Uchiyama is also fond of Ohio. Next month, construction will begin on a $50 million elevator plant in Lebanon, Ohio. When completed at the end of 1984, it will be the largest elevator factory in the world, Mr. Uchiyama said during an interview at the corporate offices in this city outside Osaka.

A new birth control pill which women could take for four days at the end of each monthly cycle, instead of for three weeks as at present, has been devised by a leading French biochemist. Prof. Etienne-Emile Baulieu announced his device, and the results of preliminary tests, in his speech of induction today to France's highest scientific body, the Academy of Sciences. Although Dr. Baulieu's work has been closely held, word of it has begun to arouse interest among several leading specialists in the United States and elsewhere. Dr. Baulieu's invention is a steroid whose effect, he says, is to jam the protein ''receptor'' through which the cells of the uterus are able to absorb progesterone. Progesterone prepares the uterine cells to accept, lodge and sustain the fertilized ovum.

In all states, for the first time, more than half of those over 25 years old have completed at least four years of high school. The number of foreign-born Americans has increased sharply after declining since 1920, and one of every 10 people reported speaking a language other than English at home. Use of public transportation declined even as the price of gasoline increased dramatically, and at the decade's end almost as many Americans walked to work as used public transit. Findings From 1980 Census These are among the rapid changes in American characteristics in the 1970's, as shown by the 1980 census. The Census Bureau made public today a summary of its findings from the long form, which one in five Americans filled out.

WHEN Morris Dickstein, a member of the English department at Queens College, decided to offer a course about the 1960's, he thought it would be a mistake to treat the heat and fervor of the decade only through its literature without giving equal attention to its sociological significance. Therefore Dr. Dickstein will teach the course together with a sociologist, Alan Wolfe, and the two professors will have lighter schedules next fall so they can jointly plan the course and then give it together in the spring. Such ventures across disciplinary lines, as logical as they may seem, are still isolated efforts at many colleges and universities, where knowledge is often narrowly segmented into academic departments. There are signs, though, that the fragmentation of knowledge may not be permanent. More and more, interdisciplinary courses are being systematically developed with institutional support, as is happening at Queens College, part of the City University of New York.