Finding the student voice

It has become a common argument that, as tuition fees return or at least are being discussed, students will become more demanding; if they are paying, they expect to see some service. As a theoretical perspective that sounds reasonable enough, but the experience of higher education systems with fees doesn’t necessarily bear this out. On [...]

The lost art of unquestioning obedience

Maybe I should just emphasise up front that, to the best of my knowledge, I have never met Father Tom Ingoldsby. Maybe he is a thoughtful clergyman and a kind man. I’m sure he is. But on the other hand, if he wants to serve the Roman Catholic Church, in which he is ordained priest, [...]

Class divisions

OK, I know many of you are tired of league tables, but bear with me on this one. What would you say is being measured by a UK university league table in which London Metropolitan University and the University of Greenwich come out on top, and the stragglers right at the bottom include the Universities [...]

Taking the tablets

I’ve now had my iPad for over three months, and I continue to use it more and more. Most recently I have taken to propping it up at meetings and taking notes on it, since I discovered that I can actually write faster on it than on a traditional keyboard (I don’t touch type, however). [...]

The teaching and researching university head

The latest issue of the US Chronicle of Higher Education contains a piece by the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Warwick, Professor Nigel Thrift, in which he explains his continuing involvement in research, in the form of at least five annual seminars or conference presentations. His argument is that he needs to be seen to [...]

In search of the working week

In a post last week I looked at the hearings that had just taken place before the Oireachtas (Irish Parliament) Public Accounts Committee, in which university presidents had been questioned about the financial management of their institutions. Much of the media coverage has concerned the payment of bonuses or other benefits to senior and middle managers [...]

A future for the humanities?

Two interesting reports have just been published about the humanities. The first is a report jointly commissioned in Ireland by the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences (IRCHSS) and the Higher Education Authority – though curiously neither body has any reference to it on their websites (the HEA site rather charmingly suggested [...]

Greek tragedy? No, it’s not inevitable

This post is coming to you from a hotel lobby in Athens. I have spend the last two days in Greece to take part in a meeting on higher education reform hosted by the Greek Prime Minister, and this has also given me an opportunity to see how the country is coping with its particular [...]

Debating the issues

Exactly 50 years ago today an event occurred that, for better or for worse, has transformed politics in a number of countries: on this day the first US presidential debate took place, in advance of the election in November 1960. The two candidates were John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon. It is generally thought [...]

New country, same issues?

I am sure that as I get more and more familiar with Scotland I will gain new insights into higher education from a Scottish perspective. For those who don’t know much about the scene in Scotland, one interesting place to start might be to look at New Horizons, the report of the group with the [...]