Some seem to think that management numbers are growing too fast HESA, the Higher Education Statistics Agency has recently published its annual summary of staff numbers in higher education. The headline data follows: Acad…
Few surprises here The polls have closed and the votes have been counted, overseen by our utterly impartial scrutineers. In a result which will surprise absolutely no-one, it is now possible to confirm the topic of the 5…
Should universities be concerned? Good report in the Chronicle about students hawking goods on campuses and the fact that university staff don’t seem to have a response or, in some cases, even an awareness of the issue. …
Two ceremonies to celebrate the achievements of Dr Tony Rich I was privileged to attend two ceremonies in February to celebrate the achievements of Tony Rich, formerly Registrar and Secretary at the University of Essex a…
More Regulatory Woes A recent speech by the Universities Minister focused on his apparent desire to reduce regulation for institutions: “We are in a government that understands the value of autonomy,” Mr Willetts said. M…
International advice for Higher Education HEGlobal, the new portal for helping universities develop transnational education capability, has launched: There is a consensus across government that engaging in and promoting …
Shorter University creates a stir In the largely secular UK HE sector, we tend to escape this kind of controversy. Inside Higher Ed though has a report on what from a UK perspective looks like an extreme constraint on st…
Blog democracy in action (kind of) Having recently passed that social media coming of age marker of the 5000th tweet I’m now rapidly bearing down on the 500th post here on Registrarism (and later in the year will hit 500…
Cornford’s Microcosmographia Academica A reminder about or introduction to a brief and essential piece of reading for everyone working in higher education. The almost timeless (well, apart from the fact it only features …
On the benefits of evaluating international activity A nice short article by Eva Egron-Polak, Secretary General of the International Association of Universities (IAU) published by the Academic Coordination Association. E…
True Crime on Campus §18 More extracts from real Security reports. The challenges never end for our hard working and extremely helpful Security staff: 0830 Patrol Security Staff discovered all of the items from a Kitchen…
A league table of universties’ social media ‘visibility’ Econsultancy have published a league table of Russell Group universities’ social media profiles or their ‘visibility’: The visibility score we use here is based on…
Responding to market demand? A recent report suggests that a US university is to offer a class on Beyonce. Beyonce is many things: singer, dancer, living pop icon, wife, mother, and namesake of a new breed of horsefly. S…
Academics make the best university leaders Or do they? For the first piece in this series I thought it would be appropriate to revisit and develop a post from early in 2011 on leadership in universities. The focus here i…
Sweden’s Education Minister has some harsh words for the country’s universities Echoing the views of the Ugandan President on his country’s higher education system, Sweden’s Education Minister, Jan Björklund, has been sp…
Social media can be overwhelming… And this can make finding the really good stuff really rather difficult. The Schumpeter column in The Economist has an interesting take on this. Most commentary on social media ignores a…
Guess which is from the 16th Century Students have always behaved badly. Not all of them and not all of the time but universities have often felt the need to seek to constrain the worst excesses. In 1584 at Oxford Univer…
Because universities are difficult, but worth it I’ve been doing this Registrarism blog for well over four years now and have become increasingly concerned that any vaguely original content tends to be somewhat crowded o…
A rather self-referential ranking this time – a league table of searches Please do excuse the self-indulgence. Top 20 searches on Registrarism over the past 12 months. Am slightly disturbed that birds, spiders and bagpip…
Perhaps, but there’s still a lot going on The Observatory on Borderless Higher Education, OBHE, has published its fourth report on international branch campuses. The OBHE definition of a branch campus, which has broadene…