Oprah in the classroom
I’m a Celebrity – get me in there The Chronicle of Higher Education has a diverting article on the appointment of celebrities as visiting academics at US universities. Celebrity adjunct culture as it is described brings …
Posts, page 33
International agents: regulation required?
Do we need to regulate universities use of international recruitment agents? A new publication from the Leadership Foundation, called Using International Recruitment Agents: Risks and Regulation? argues that we do need m…
Top new university ranking: 50 under 50 degrees north
An exciting new league table! Both QS and THE have, rather unimaginatively, produced rankings of universities under 50 years old. More exciting alternative rankings here have offered the highly creative 20 over 500 and 3…
Higher Ed data – way too much information
Tackling the surfeit of data I’ve written before here about Higher Education regulation (see for example this general commentary and this post on information provision) and the excess of information provision available t…
New 2013/14 QS World University Rankings
Latest QS world league table is out Full details of the rankings can be found at the QS website. A summary of the world top 10 follows where we find MIT retaining the top spot for a second year and four UK universities r…
Reducing University Regulation in Australia
“Red tape strangling universities must be cut” A recently released report in Australia following a review of higher education regulation has found that an “unnecessarily heavy reporting burden” had been imposed on higher…
The Imperfect University: rational admissions – it’s time for PQA
A brighter future for university admissions? It will be some time before all of the results are in but it does look at this stage as if this year’s admissions round has been a little less turbulent than last year’s. The …
Getting off my bike…
A rather challenging ride for a very good cause As previously noted here I faced a major cycling challenge on Sunday as part of Life Cycle 3: During the last two summers a team from the University of Nottingham led by ou…
The Office of Fair Trading targets universities
The OFT is investigating universities’ terms and conditions The Office of Fair Trading, apparently at the request of the National Union of Students, has started an investigation into whether some of the sanctions imposed…
University of Nottingham: Gig central
The University has hosted some impressive acts down the years It has been quite a long time since the University of Nottingham hosted really big bands. But the history, mainly from the early 70s before the advent of the …
Campus Tours: seeing the university on wheels
Getting mobile on campus The Chronicle of Higher Education has a story on some interesting approaches to making campus tours a little more bearable: People complain when their feet get sore, the University of North Texas…
The Graduate Programme for University Leadership
An excellent programme for graduates looking to develop careers in university management Recruitment for the Graduate Programme for University Leadership has recently gone live and the pitch is a good one: The university…
Zombie University
Zombies in the Academy: Living Death in Higher Education Very excited at the news of the publication of Zombies in the Academy: Living Death in Higher Education. Ever since the launch of the zombie course at the Universi…
Getting on my bike…
A shortish ride for a very good cause During the last two summers a team from the University of Nottingham led by our Vice-Chancellor cycled ridiculously long distances to raise money for good causes. The team did not in…
2013 Academic Ranking of World Universities: Top 20 and UK placings
2013 ARWU University World Rankings: Top 20 and UK placings Alevel results day is an interesting time to publish a world ranking but who are we to criticise. Anyway, don’t get too excited as it is unlikely the bookies wi…
The Imperfect University: Know Your History
Know your history For my 700th blog post here I thought I would reflect on university histories. Given their nature it’s often struck me as rather surprising that universities and their staff tend not to have a well deve…
True Crime on Campus §30: Summer break?
Yet more true crime on campus Things can be difficult on campus sometimes. Even during the summer break there is still plenty to challenge our ever-alert security team. Especially when the weather is hot: 0740 Report tha…
Go West. Or East. Plans for more student mobility
Government wants more students to travel There is to be a Government initiative to persuade more students to travel. The aim is that more UK students will be encouraged to broaden their horizons by travelling overseas fo…
‘University of Nike’ in Oregon
A huge investment in university sport The New York Times has a report on the opening of a hugely expensive new facility to enhance the University of Oregon’s football programme. It comes courtesy of a sizeable donation f…
How Green is my Campus?
An exciting new tool to count university plants A web-based tool to measure plant diversity on university and college campuses has been developed by the University of Northampton with funds from HEFCE. The index The Biod…