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The Wal-Mart ethos attracts few buyers among US lecturers
Staff chafe but administrators press on with efforts to instil consumer focus. Jon Marcus writes
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The Week in Higher Education
He may be known as "Two Brains", but universities minister David Willetts has always relied on four eyes - until now. Mr Willetts has shed his spectacles thanks to laser eye surgery and on 20 January...
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From where I sit - Where passion trumps technology
With the new academic year in ߣߣÊÓƵ set to start in a few weeks, I am savouring a time of quiet contemplation before the madness begins. Naturally, I think about fresh strategies for teaching...
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Arguments over space
A tumultuous exhibition places debates about sculpture's position and possibilities in sharp relief, finds Alex Danchev
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David Bradby, 1942-2011
David Bradby was an "incredibly ethical" scholar with a "dry wit" who spent his academic career working to promote the study of non-English theatre.He was born on February 1942 and studied modern...
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Irreconcilable differences
Demand-led funding and growing state regulation may leave the ߣߣÊÓƵn system with the worst of all worlds, says Steven Schwartz
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Oh yes it is: red scare is pure pantomime (1 of 2)
The University and College Union's national executive committee (NEC) recently confirmed that it is about to conduct five separate ballots in higher and further education institutions over jobs,...
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Oh yes it is: red scare is pure pantomime (2 of 2)
As the UCU has pointed out, higher education in the UK has recently been beset by a series of problematic developments and it is now considering industrial action. One of the actions taken (or indeed...
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Dread dress rehearsal
Alastair Hudson suggests that police kettling is explicable as a "massive and premeditated overreaction" designed to provoke violence by raising the tension in enclosed spaces, hence focusing media...
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Elitist pipe dream (1 of 3)
While Research Councils UK's proposals to concentrate quality-related research funding on centres of established excellence and capacity are defensible, those advocated by David Colquhoun - which...
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Elitist pipe dream (2 of 3)
Two articles last week - your interview with David Colquhoun and the news story "How the mighty have fallen: impact pilot's unexpected results" - tell contradictory stories.Colquhoun suggests that...
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Elitist pipe dream (3 of 3)
David Colquhoun's recommendation to concentrate research in elite institutions was illustrated with an image of him smoking a pipe. Clearly research evidence has little impact on his personal...
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Number of ironies (1 of 2)
There is magnificent irony in Chris Ormell's article "Putting reality back into the equation" (20 January) when he declares that "Mathematics tends to be...misunderstood", as his own profound...
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Number of ironies (2 of 2)
Chris Ormell makes a number of ridiculous claims, including that pure mathematics is about nothing more than the reification of symbols, and that blind faith among mathematicians is responsible for...