Mike the mouth

Alumnus to be proud of No: 36 is the irrepressible Mike Fitzgerald, vice chancellor of Thames Valley University and self-proclaimed "Kenneth Tynan of higher education," after his becoming the first person ever to be quoted on the front page of The THES using a four-letter word. His linguistic orthodoxy, conformist dress sense and deep-rooted respect for higher education's longer-established ways of doing things were polished as a student at Selwyn College, Cambridge and Leicester University.