The Rise and Fall of Arab Presidents for Life
Philip Robins on the Middle Eastern despots who held power for so long and lost it so rapidly
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Maps of Utopia: H.G. Wells, Modernity and the End of Culture
How much is society prepared to invest in the quality of the education it offers and to make it easily accessible to its entire population? What can and should art and literature do for the societies...
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Darkness Before Daybreak: African Migrants Living on the Margins in Southern Italy Today
How hard life is for immigrants, exploited and robbed of their weekly wages by Neapolitans. What happens in a degraded economic area of Southern Italy when newcomers arrive illegally? The...
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All in a Don's Day
The chance to review a series of blogs on scholarly life was an offer Tom Palaima couldn't refuse
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Complicity in the Holocaust: Churches and Universities in Nazi Germany
"Licence to kill" - this was the message given to the German people during the era of the Third Reich by the two most morally authoritative groups in society, the churches and the universities,...
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The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided By Politics and Religion
Why can't we all just get along? According to moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt, the reason is that human nature is intrinsically "groupish" and judgemental. Haidt weaves together updated versions of...
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Hell on Earth: shock finding
"Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery."That was the benign response of Professor B.D. Trott, the Head of our Department of Tourism, to reports that a new institute at the University of Central...
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Sir Brandon Gough, 1937-2012
A leading businessman who went on to become a greatly valued "ambassador, guide and friend" to the University of East Anglia has died.Sir Brandon Gough was born in Merseyside on 8 October 1937 and...
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Flying the Union flag for global graduates
Top graduates need to be able to compete in the global economy, so we are pleased that the government has recognised the importance of international study for all students, including those not...
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Zero-sum game
Congratulations to John Gill for highlighting one of the major implications of current higher education policy ("All for one, or none for all?", Leader, 3 May). The sector is looking and being...
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Corporate malfeasance
Tony Blair is a highly pragmatic politician who reacts to the world as he finds it ("Tony Blair: up the 'revolution'", 3 May). Lying behind the changes that he portrays as inevitable are some...
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Listen, learn a thing or two
The Commons Education Committee states that "a diminution of universities' role in teacher training could bring considerable demerits". It also questions the use of degree class as the determinant of...
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Amateur ethos
There are several aspects to the question of independent scholarship ("Free-range thinkers", 3 May): G.B. Shaw's "All professions are conspiracies against the laity" is one argument; another is the...
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Quality retreat
Regarding your article on the balance between quality-related (QR) and research council funding ("Hands off the funding sacred cow?", 3 May): one major difference between the sources is the way that...
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Auntie exploitation
"Screwed" is how one of my colleagues referred to her experience with the BBC. Asked to set something up for The One Show, she willingly agreed, assuming she would be appropriately compensated for...