With top-up fees about to make it onto the statute books, concerns about low pay forcing an exodus from Britain's universities, and research concentration leading to teaching-only universities, there were a number of pressing matters at the annual conference of lecturers' union Natfhe last weekend.
But it seems that some are capable of seeing beyond the big issues. An emergency motion from the Northern Region said: "Conference expresses concern that the executive has not conformed with either the letter or the spirit of resolution 101 passed at last year's annual conference, which called for the reinstatement from 2004-05 of the Natfhe diary."