Impact assessment
I was at the research excellence framework conference last week ("Hefce backs off citations in favour of peer review in REF", 18 June).Your focus on what we pretty much knew already - that peer...
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Tongue-tied 1
Recent weeks have seen a fresh wave of anxiety concerning the health of modern languages in the UK at all levels of education.How comforting it is, therefore, to read in the "education strategy" of...
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Tongue-tied 2
Futurologist Ian Pearson ("Wisdom received, over and out", 18 June) suggests that "more rapid reverse engineering of brain processes" coupled with an alleged exponential progress in technology will...
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Face value 1
Deborah Rogers' view of Facebook is unnecessarily negative ("I poke dead people: the paradox of Facebook", 18 June). The amusement to be found in poking, joining frivolous "interest" groups and...
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Face value 2
It was amusing to see Deborah Rogers suggest that Facebook may have "jumped the shark".The phrase originated from an episode of the US television series Happy Days in which, allegedly, the...
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Not-so-super-determinism
I want to correct Sian Moore's continued inaccuracies (Letters, 18 June) concerning Trade Unions in a Neoliberal World, which I co-edited with John McIlroy. Moore claims that we present "an...
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Question of balance
For Richard Austen-Baker's proposal (Letters, 18 June) to really work, surely all academic appointments should also be half administration? Much better, surely, for all concerned to recognise that...
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Crystal clear on library value
The consultation that is now demanded over the future of the University of London's institute libraries (Letters, 4 and 18 June) has already been done, in Sir Ivor Crewe's 2008 Review of Hefce...
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Still at the crease
Thank you, Michael W. Thomas (Letters, 18 June), for drawing readers' attention to my "innings" of letters. If there's one thing worse than being talked about, etc etc. However, I know I can trust...
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Age-old practice revisited
Academic takes job but shows reluctance to appear in the building ("The visiting fellow who will not visit", 18 June). You report this as if it were a new phenomenon.Neil Badmington, Penarth.
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Peter Townsend, 1928-2009
Peter Townsend, a pioneering sociologist and poverty campaigner, has died.He was born in Middlesbrough on 6 April 1928 and brought up by his mother and grandmother.Although he secured scholarships to...
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University of Oxford - Gates boost to malaria research
An international network of malaria scientists is to be established following a $20 million (£12.5 million) grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The Worldwide Antimalarial Resistance...
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Graduation ceremonies
This week we are pleased to carry the following recommendations from our Director of Corporate Affairs, Jamie Targett, on body control during the forthcoming graduation ceremoniesTo all members of...
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Well, what did you expect?
The burgeoning culture of complaints delivers no surprises for Alan Ryan
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From where I sit - Meetings of more than minds
Academic conferences are sometimes dismissed as frivolous and self-indulgent, even - or perhaps especially - by those who take part in them.And frankly, given that my last paper was delivered at 8 o'...