The toxic dispute over the rights of transgender people and how freely these matters should be discussed remains academia’s most divisive issue. Laura Favaro explains what she learned from speaking to both sides
Students should be encouraged to tackle books, ideas or ways of thinking they may find distressing or offensive – but offering emotional support is important too, says Sussex’s new vice-chancellor, Sasha Roseneil
Bill opens door to ‘vexatious’ lawsuits against universities and to ministerial ‘control-freakery’ on overseas funding, warn Lord Willetts and Lord Johnson
The University of Wisconsin-La Crosse chancellor discusses the importance of role models for students, his approach to hiring top staff and how he has stayed in the role for 15 years
After years of crude attacks on individual faculty and curriculum, Florida’s ambitious partisan governor identifies more palatable and enduring form of deep academic restraint
The Princeton University president discusses the oversimplification of the free speech debate and his personal journey of discovery kicked off by his son’s school project
Even universities in the hermit kingdom largely cut themselves off from the rest of the world. Yet those few Westerners with direct experience of them suggest that while critical inquiry is predictably unwelcome, the global publish or perish culture is starting to take hold. Pola Lem reports
As Australia’s general election looms, many in university circles may be hoping that Scott Morrison’s coalition is voted out. But is it true that conservative governments and universities are natural antagonists? And how much better would the sector fare under a Labor administration? John Ross reports
Universities have the connections and resources for sophisticated risk management, not just ‘bureaucratic box-ticking’, says British-Australian academic