Falling standards? (3)
Your poll on declining standards concerns me for two reasons ("Poll reveals pressure to dumb down", November 19). First, the article seems to imply that only well-qualified school leavers are...
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A place for bullies
The culture of bullying described in "Bullying made me feel suicidal" (Soapbox, November 5) is directly linked to the institutional transformation of British universities in the past two decades. The...
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Essential ethics
The debate about ethical oversight of research in the social sciences seems to be becoming unnecessarily polarised (Letters, November 12). Surely we have nothing to fear from procedures that require...
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Just Jacques
Your articles on Jacques Derrida (Features, November 12) focused on his intellectual achievements. Yet he deserves to be remembered as a passionate champion of the oppressed and abused, human and...
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Facing the F-word
Congratulations on at last mentioning the F-word ("Top-up failures could go broke", November 19). As Roger Brown notes in the latest Higher Education Review , as many as half the present university...
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Long-term trends
I totally agree with John Schellnhuber (People, November 12) that a better understanding of possible thresholds in the climate system beyond which rapid, damaging changes may occur is absolutely...
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Royally confused
The comment made by Charles Clarke, Education Secretary, that Prince Charles doesn't know what is going on in British education should not surprise anyone. Given the ever-moving "goalposts", most of...
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Rhetoric hits home
I never thought I could ever buy into George W. Bush's petty rhetoric on old and new worlds. But Cambridge University's approach to its struggling department of architecture makes me wonder. After...
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Hail email
Of course, we all empathise with Tim Birkhead in his piece on the scourge of email (Working Knowledge, November 12). However, let us not forget that it deserves great credit for silencing that other...
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Bonkers or ahead of the game?
For up to £2,000 a day, consultants advise on anything from stress to staff, but do universities need them or are they a waste of money, asks Harriet Swain When Newcastle University was preparing its...
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She's short, hairy and over 12,000 years old. Say hello to a very special lady
LB1 has thrown our idea of what it means to be human into turmoil. Erica Fudge explains The announcement in the journal Nature of a newly discovered skeleton of a "small-bodied hominin" - a new...
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So, do you know who is pulling your strings?
Brainwashing is not just the stuff of B-movies and cults, it is a real threat, says Kathleen Taylor. What do you think of when you hear the word "brainwashing"? B-movies? Newspaper stories of cults?...
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Selling out to get 'asses in classes'
Stephen Phillips looks at the hard-sell culture at some US for-profit colleges. The picture of the University of Phoenix, the largest for-profit university, that emerged from a recent scathing US...
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Psychopaths aren't what they used to be
People with aggressive tendencies can't change, but they can adapt, says Harriet Swain. Our monthly guide to the various conferences taking place around the world. How many psychopaths do you know?...
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Conference watch: November
Crossing Borders: Histories, Theories and Identities: An interdisciplinary conference exploring the new discipline of border studies, organised by the Centre for Border Studies, Glamorgan University...