A knight to remember
Sir David Steel, presiding officer of the Scottish Parliament, runs a tight ship, preventing MSPs over-running during debates. He was keeping an eye on the clock recently as MSPs queued to express...
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FRT plate is a gas
John Laird, director of the Scottish Further Education Unit, clocks up substantial mileage visiting Scotland's colleges. He decided to change to a gas-powered car and found a reasonably priced Rover...
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A bit behind deadline
The Diary has received a new entry for the title of most tardy performance by a higher education institute. A reader who completed a postgraduate course in periodical journalism in 1996 at the London...
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Maths BAs can't add up
First-year maths undergraduates at Queen Mary, University of London, must now pass an elementary maths exam to progress to the second year. The exam - which aims to...
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Ex-polys should ignore the jeers and take a bow
The tenth anniversary of the founding of the new universities is upon us. Stand by for a rash of dismissive speeches and articles about degrees in surf science and golf management. Except, of course...
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Have you checked your pending tray, Mr Blair?
If you don't scratch our backs, Tony, you'll rub the country up the wrong way, warns Ron Dearing The present decade is one of emerging peril for the UK. Economic peril comes from a growing squeeze...
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Broaden your mind, Mr Brown
Social sciences and humanities have a key role to play in our economic future, argues Bob Bennett Science and technology often grab the headlines as well as political attention. But the contributions...
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An elegy to the error
A possible mistaken identity has raised questions about literary 'evidence', says Donald Foster. In 1996, I was blasted in the pages of The Times Literary Supplement for having introduced A Funeral...
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Why I ... think the National Union of Students is in urgent need of reform
In every student union across the country, officer handover has been taking place as the next generation of full-time student representatives prepares to embark on its time in office. The next year...
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Tireless Nobelist turning his attention to the stars
Baruch Blumberg's past work is saving millions of lives. Now, aged 74, he is leading a Nasa team into the future, writes Geoff Watts By age 74, most academics have quit the business. But not Baruch...
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Acquittal was just a chance in 73 million
Misleading statistics may have convicted a mother of murder. Adam James reports Cheshire solicitor Sally Clark was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1999 for the murder of her two sons, 11-week-old...
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'We'll make Saturn by '70'
In the late 1950s, Freeman Dyson worked on a project to turn weapons of mass destruction into an intergalactic fuel source. Helen Hague reports. When the young George Dyson told school pals in...
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Where there's smokes, there's ire
When Nottingham University accepted cash from a tobacco company a storm erupted - staff quit and cancer charities were furious. Tony Tysome talks to researcher David Thurston, who left, and those who...
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New key in same old lock
Can fresh approaches to history stand the test of time, asks David Cannadine, who opens four pages on 'rewriting the past', the theme of the Anglo-American Conference of Historians. In What is...
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Science's struggle to mould imperial subjects
'Native' scholars used to help transmit knowledge of western science to Indians, undermining the British effort to present European learning as an example of civilisation superiority, argues Michael...