Satire in Higher Education. I’ve written before about books covering higher education in general and the commented on the end of the campus novel as well as its possible reinvention. More recently, there has been a serie…
Professor ranked as one of the least stressful jobs Inside Higher Ed has a report on an annual work survey which again names Professor as a low-stress job. This year’s report ranks university professor the No. 4 least-st…
Because universities are still difficult, but still worth it With the latest post, on Robbins, we are now up to a total of 18 pieces to date in the Imperfect University series. Covering a wide range of occasionally relev…
A great exhibition at the Djanogly Gallery, Lakeside This exhibition is undoubtedly the highlight of Lakeside’s winter season and is the first outing of a terrific collection of contemporary art: The guiding principle be…
The Sims 3: University Life Back in 2007 I posted on Sims 2 University. Since then things have become much more exciting it seems. This Sims 3: University Life opportunity to “play with university life” all sounds incred…
More gloomy news for MOOC enthusiasts MIT Technology Review has a striking report on how some data mining has exposed a few embarrassing problems for MOOCs. The research confirms earlier reports about low continuation an…
True Crime on Campus §33: Best of 2013 and vote for #1 It’s the time for some reviews of last year’s stuff and 2013 has been another busy year for our hard working Security staff. Here are some of my true crime on campus…
Well, it’s been a busy old year. Following the incredibly innovative post pretty similar to this last year I thought I would repeat this highly efficient means of listing previous postings. Yes, it’s the list of the most…
Review proposes yet more performance indicators An earlier post noted that the UK Performance Indicators Steering Group (or the UKPISG, perhaps one of the least felicitous acronyms in higher education), was undertaking a…
Memories… Inside Higher Ed has an interesting article on avoiding the loss of valuable institutional knowledge which occurs when employees move on. Previous An earlier post commented on the importance of institutional hi…
More crimes about guns A post here a couple of years ago noted the challenges US universities were facing in trying to address guns on campus. More recently there was news in a survey on US students’ views on carrying co…
What are academic bloggers blogging about? And why? A great article for the Guardian Higher Education Network by Pat Thomson ( @ThomsonPat ) and Inger Mewburn ( @thesiswhisperer ) on bloggers in higher education. The pie…
All change please! Sectoral change since Robbins and into the future Rewriting Robbins? The very thought I recently agreed to give a presentation on this theme at an event entitled “Rewriting Robbins” by those lovely peo…
And they are looking for a lot of information. Back in October 2013 the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) issued a call for information on the undergraduate part of the higher education sector in England. This follows the ear…
It’s probably not quite what they were hoping for Inside Higher Ed reports on a bold plan at the University of Michigan to address shared services within the institution. The idea must have seemed such a good one at the …
But the report strikes a few wrong notes Back in July 2013 the Department for Business Innovation and Skills published its International education strategy: global growth and prosperity. For some reason it passed me by, …
The all new higher education game. Inspired by the recent Rewriting Robbins conference I thought it would be fun to create a new game to mark the 50 years since the publication of the Robbins report (any resemblance to a…
A bold assertion. An interesting claim this – France Info says that France has invented the ‘Pop Up Campus’: On connaissait les cours par correspondance, les MOOC (Massive open online course) des cours universitaires dis…
How one university is going for broke with a new stadium. Inside Higher Ed has an interesting story about Colorado State University’s plan to solve all of its problems with a new stadium. The University is, in common wit…
Cricket take off at US Universities The Boston Globe has a great story about the rather remarkable resurgence of cricket at US universities: After years of dormancy in America, cricket is making a rapid comeback at Ameri…