The British Academy at 100 finds itself shorn of much of its research-granting powers and facing the prospect of becoming a self-perpetuating club for old folk. Harriet Swain reports on how it...
Contrary to your report ("Vietnamese students snubbed on return home", THES , May 31), graduates with a UK qualification, whether self-funded or on scholarships, have been in high demand in the...
I have always assumed that Sydney Smith's labour-saving principle - "I never read a book before reviewing it; it prejudices a man so" - is never adopted, but Peter Watson, in reviewing Isaiah Berlin'...
The Muslim students who discuss personal religious issues with me argue in the essentialist terms that C. W. Watson derides ("Open up to a very creative culture", THES , June 14). These students say...
I hope John Black (Letters, THES , June 21) is wrong when he thinks of himself as past his sell-by date at 55. By 2006, age discrimination will be unlawful. But education will be excluded. The...
Lancaster University has no intention of abandoning its collegiate system or of offering accommodation only at high rents, as was implied in a caption on page 3 last week. The university was founded...
Brothers and sisters, pernicious arguments have been circulating of late proposing the abolition of degree classification. The malevolent sects responsible for these perverse opinions must be refuted...
I read "Dynamic sector demands respect" ( THES , June 21) with trepidation, particularly a comment on a Universities UK report: "The government's desire to expand and diversify provision while...
Anyone might think that English literature was in the doldrums after reading last week's THES . First came the news that "Manchester admits 'sexism and hostility'" then, in features, Bob Eaglestone...
If "lit critters" really want to "sell" themselves, they should write comprehensible English. Even though I have a PhD in literature, I am baffled by the labyrinthine syntax and jargon-ridden prose...
Bob Eagleston's hype that literary studies is a "unique and important way of understanding contemporary problems" would be more persuasive were it not a field so permeated by philosophical and...
Stephen Burwood is correct: students are not customers ("Customer concerns", THES , June 21). As customers, we rarely aspire to perform the role of the person serving us; as students, we commonly do...
In return for tuition fees, it is only fair for students to expect a high standard of teaching, access to information and other institutional resources. Teach them how to fish, but give them the...
The charters of "old" universities define students as members of the university. They derive rights from, but also carry obligations towards, their institution. Customers do not carry specific...
In the 1950s, at a Scottish university, I recall a foreign student who took private lessons in physics but was reluctant to pay until he had passed the exam on account of his belief that "if the...