Felipe Fernández-Armesto
Felipe Fernández-Armesto Second-hand bookshops are full of reviewers' discards. There must be books I have written among them, but none that I have reviewed. When I read a book it becomes part of me...
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Leader: Fees may dry up the postgrad pool
Seen from the perspective of an English university, the all-consuming question about top-up fees is the effect they will have on admissions over the next few weeks. There will be time enough to worry...
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Leader: Shame about the name
Giving a system designed to monitor student attendance the title of Uni-Nanny may not have been the best way to win acceptance from the responsible adults that it should benefit. But some method of...
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The business of being a good v-c 1
A minor flurry of vice-chancellor resignations and retirements, with the prospect of a generation of more "businesslike" vice-chancellors ("Struggle to fill v-c job vacancies", July 21), should not...
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The business of being a good v-c 2
It was a reasonably safe bet that recent comments by David Allen, chair of the Association of Heads of University Administration, on non-academics being appointed to vice-chancellor positions would "...
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The business of being a good v-c 3
For the past two years, I have been empirically examining the question: should top universities be led by top scholars? I have looked at leaders of 100 global universities and deans of 140 business...
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Don't take shine off 1
Why has Andy Pike, a University and College Union official, assumed the role of the Lord Protector of the teaching staff at Leeds Metropolitan University and with whose authority ("UCU anger at Leeds...
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Don't take shine off 2
Don't students deserve "glitzy graduations"? In a high-tech, fast-moving world, the sooner we move away from the stuffy- town-hall speech-laden scenario the better. Cost is an issue, but with...
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Long-term study
The feature "Minaret among the dreaming spires" (July 7) contains a number of statements that it is surprising to see in The Times Higher . One would have expected the writer to be aware that there...
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Pay deal not politics
The most striking thing about your page of comments on the recent pay dispute (Opinion, July 28) was not the views expressed, which probably represent a fair cross-section of what people in...
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Taking a view on Israel 1
David Hirsh has a remarkable ability to play fast and loose with the facts (Opinion, July 28). Or maybe he has been listening to too much Israeli propaganda. Wherever did he get the idea that...
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Taking a view on Israel 2
Every individual has a right to criticise any government, community or group anywhere in the world. But when a member criticises his own community publicly as a community member, the implication that...
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Debate not decision 1
Your article on the possible use of metrics to assess research quality in the arts and humanities ("Arts academics slate metrics", July ) triggered a number of concerns that are unfounded. The Higher...
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Debate not decision 2
Tim Birkhead's column on the lottery nature of research funding ("Working Knowledge, July 21) demonstrates why many academics rely on "self-funding". The UK must take care to ensure that any new...
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Never lost for words
As linguists prepare for their annual conference, Neil Smith and Ian Robinson do battle over the verbal high ground, debating the legacy of a linguistic icon Noam Chomsky has shown that there is...