Undergrads lose out
THE Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching has savaged the standards of teaching for undergraduates at top United States research universities. In a report just published, it concludes...
Search
-
-
Collaboration is the future
"PLUS ca change, plus c'est la meme chose" was possibly not an expression used by Tony Blair in his recent speech to the French National Assembly in Paris. But it is a fitting starting point for my...
-
One year older and no richer
Labour has achieved much in its first year in office. Potentially most significant is its success in carrying through John Major's initiative and securing a peace deal in Northern Ireland - if...
-
Excellence and equity
Amartya Sen, internationally renowned economist, says changes to higher education must address how to increase access for all while maintaining standards. Mark Twain described cauliflower as "nothing...
-
Reasons for famine
PATRICK McGregor is surely right to place considerable responsibility on the Treasury for the scale of Irish mortality in the famine of 1845-50 (THES, April 10). However, by placing so much weight on...
-
Origin of the enemies
RAY MONK's review of Raymond Tallis's Enemies of Hope (THES, March 20) is mostly a carve-up of me. Tallis says his book began as a review of my Origins of the Sacred which "got out of hand". Monk...
-
Incentives for quality
THE fact that the Higher Education Funding Council for England may have decided to reward teaching excellence on the basis of Quality Assurance Agency assessments (THES, leader, April 17) does not...
-
Incentives for quality
I HAD assumed that by now some more balanced response would have greeted the self-serving bluster about the QAA in your issues of March and April 3. The salaries and universities of Mantz Yorke and...
-
Researchers owe tacit debt to Polanyi
PETE Mann's advice to postgraduate research students to trust more in tacit knowledge is well-founded (THES Research, April 17). But his brief allusion to Michael Polanyi scarcely conveys his...
-
Sad result of flexibility
THE deletion of 78 posts at the University of East London (THES, April 3) sees Labour's "flexible" employment policy enacted. It sadly reflects the sometimes iniquitous double-talk prevalent among...
-
Blowing the whistle
You report that the Committee of University Chairmen has revised its guide for governors, including adding the requirement that "universities should have clear procedures for dealing with...
-
Scientific fightback
JOHN Ziman misunderstands the purpose of Flight from Science and Reason (THES, April 24). Far from trying to create a new philosophy or history of science it is forging a resistance to what has...
-
Carrot for teaching quality takes stick
If money makes the world go round, there is no overwhelming reason to believe that the university sector is exempted. The interplay of high ideas and the engagement of disinterested if contested...
-
Don's diary
Sunday Wake up early with chest thumping. In the paper yesterday was a report suggesting that stress levels imposed by meeting deadlines are similar to those induced by having to fire someone. The...
-
Branching out
(Photograph) - Bob Fryer, chair of the government's national advisory committee for continuing education and lifelong learning, will be director of University of Southampton New College and director...