A new national map of economic and social patterns reveals that your sex, when you were born and where you live all have a significant influence on your chances of attending university. Paul Hill...
"Universities bend over backwards not to be judgemental. If universities can't provide an ethical model, what value is their education?" - Steven Schwartz, vice-chancellor of Brunel University. Ah,...
Academics in continental Europe are no doubt following the row about course closures in the UK and the debate about how to protect courses of national importance with a mix of curiosity and...
The discovery that the research councils have spent almost £100,000 on hiring private-sector consultants to train members to withstand scrutiny by select committees is alarming (page 1). It is also...
What is happening to the advancement of knowledge for its own sake? It seems that PhDs are now being pulled into the "sausage machine" of time-constrained knowledge production and standardisation ("...
Questions over the future of part-time PhDs reveal an irresistible pull to return higher education to its elitist past under the guise of issues of quality assurance. Technology affords the means to...
Kate McLuskie makes clear her disagreement with Tom McAlindon's gloomy assessment of the current state of Shakespeare studies, something that he attributed to the dominance of politicised modes of...
In answer to Tom McAlindon's complaint that, as regards Shakespeare studies, there has been "a marked decline in standards of analysis, interpretation and argument", Kate McLuskie, the newly...
We all enjoy good news stories, and last week you covered two stories with clear similarities; both concerned university announcements of particularly large new multidisciplinary research institutes...
As an actuary, I take some interest in pensions. According to its annual report for the year ended March 31, 2004, the Universities Superannuation Scheme had more than 80 per cent of its funds...
I think it is about time that somebody told The Times Higher that the column written by Laurie Taylor that appears every week on the back page is not funny and has not been funny for quite a number...
For Jim Mills and his circle of thirtysomething friends, UK universities appear to be populated by middle-aged "nay-sayers and gloom merchants" on the one hand and young and optimistic eager beavers...
Optimism is like chocolate: it is very pleasant but in large quantities can cause indigestion. Jim Mills tells us that young, successful academics in their early careers are quintessentially...
It won't do. We columnists are supposed to get a go each in sequence and in our proper place in The Times Higher . And now you've let Gary Day adopt the pseudonym of "Jim Mills" and write yet another...
I was delighted to see that my letter about Meg Barker had got the Left-liberal thought police snapping at my heels (Letters, January 14). I would like to make two points in response. The first...