More bonkers degrees?
Are they bonkers? Or just very well targeted? With apologies for repetition. But it is August. And in the context of A-level results day, we all need to reflect on the real value of some of the finest HE provision around…
Posts, page 48
2011 Shanghai Jiao Tong World Rankings: Top 10 and UK placings
2011 Shanghai Jiao Tong World Rankings: Top 10 and UK placings The rankings have been published and are available at the ARWU site I believe but there seem to be problems with access at time of writing. Am therefore goin…
Where is the Most Beautiful Campus?
Florida, apparently In yet another league table, although one yet to capture the public imagination, the Princeton Review has ranked Florida Southern College the nation’s “Most Beautiful Campus”. The ranking is based on …
Keeping it in the family: Italian academia
Italian academia is a family business according to new statistical analysis A previous post noted a report highlighting the problems of nepotism in Italian universities. More detailed information has recently been publis…
Fraud failings “could cost £1bn a year”
Silly season stuff? Times Higher carries a story suggesting universities’ counter-fraud failings could cost £1bn a year: Higher education is the worst at protecting against fraud of all publicly funded sectors, with the …
Youth club: True crime on campus §13
More true crime on campus In addition to dealing with the challenges presented by staff, students and visitors to campus, our indefatigable Security team also has to cope with the inappropriate activities of various grou…
Sustaining Excellence conference
2011 APM Conference – Sustaining Excellence A brief note on what felt like a really good event, building on the success of first APM conference last summer and involving nearly 300 professional services staff from across…
Following the money: paying out for AAB
“Universities cut fees for top students” According to The Sunday Times that is. However, the headline doesn quite match the story which is a bit more complicated than that. The BBC presents it a little differently as “Un…
Poppletonian coverage
Out of the closet There is, of course, no greater honour than to receive a mention in the august organ that is the Poppletonian. Following a piece on ‘the people below stairs’ in the Times Higher, this important matter w…
The Strategic Plan: a tool for administrative power?
Questioning the purpose of the strategic plan The Chronicle of Higher Education carries an extract from a new book by Benjamin Ginsberg on the ‘all-administrative university’ which apparently argues that: that the explos…
Honorary degree anyone?
More graduation fun The Guardian invites us to consider this year’s honorary degree recipients: It’s about this time of year that academics start digging out their robes and dusting off their mortar boards, as thousands …
Global Graduation Ceremonies
Graduation – anytime, anywhere It is, in the UK at least, near the end of the season for graduation ceremonies. But as Nigel Thrift observed in a recent piece for the Chronicle of Higher Education there are likely to be …
Intelligent gaming?
“The Game Designer’s Tale” The Chronicle of Higher Education reports on an English lecturer’s novel creation of a boardgame based on the Canterbury Tales. Learning through play? In The Road to Canterbury, each player fun…
Administrators cannot offer ‘enlightened management’
Some views on administrators and academics as university leaders Geoffrey Williams has recently argued that administrators cannot deliver enlightened management in universities. According to Williams only academics can d…
Should you shake hands at graduation?
University staff living on the edge? Topical issue this in graduation season. A researcher at Johns Hopkins University has been studying the health risks associated with shaking hands at graduation: Bishai got the idea f…
True crime on campus §12: Just another day
Yet more true crime on campus This time it is a selection of reports from just one day at the University of Nottingham. Perhaps not an entirely typical day, there is something of an end of term feel about some of the eve…
British students flocking to the US Ivy League. Or not?
An untrained brain drain? In a recent post I commented on the press reports on the modest flow of English students to universities in continental Europe and the reverse flow of other EU students to the UK. The media seem…
University of the People v College for the Few
For the many or the few? A previous post commented on the Fantasy institution that is the New College of the Humanities. This story rumbles on in the UK and is continuing source of interest for many. But whatever one mig…
Agonising over International Student Recruitment
Squeamish or purist? US universities debating use of recruitment agents The Chronicle of Higher Education reports on what sounds like a lively debate on the use of agents for international student recruitment. The practi…
White Paper inspiration from the US?
A somewhat different approach to cost savings in the new fees regime Not sure if this was a source of inspiration for the White Paper. It looks like something of a blue print for efficient management at the bargain basem…