Students flogging it

Should universities be concerned? Good report in the Chronicle about students hawking goods on campuses and the fact that university staff don't seem to have a response or, in some cases, even an awareness of the issue.   When classmates market products on campus, it's hard not to notice. Students handing out logo-emblazoned T-shirts, complimentary …

Rich celebrations

Two ceremonies to celebrate the achievements of Dr Tony Rich I was privileged to attend two ceremonies in February to celebrate the achievements of Tony Rich, formerly Registrar and Secretary at the University of Essex and a mentor to me for nearly 20 years. The first event was the naming of a new teaching centre …

The Imperfect University: More and more regulation

More Regulatory Woes A recent speech by the Universities Minister focused on his apparent desire to reduce regulation for institutions: “We are in a government that understands the value of autonomy,” Mr Willetts said. Mr Willetts talked about the possibility of reducing data collection requirements as well as the likelihood of universities escaping some EU …

HEGlobal – helping UK higher education internationalise?

International advice for Higher Education HEGlobal, the new portal for helping universities develop transnational education capability, has launched: There is a consensus across government that engaging in and promoting international education and skills is strategically important to the UK for three main reasons: firstly it presents potentially significant commercial opportunities; secondly, it is an important …

University requires a ‘personal lifestyle statement’ for all staff

Shorter University creates a stir In the largely secular UK HE sector, we tend to escape this kind of controversy. Inside Higher Ed though has a report on what from a UK perspective looks like an extreme constraint on staff and students at Shorter University in the USA: When Shorter University introduced four new faith …

Landmark blog post – voting now open

Blog democracy in action (kind of) Having recently passed that social media coming of age marker of the 5000th tweet I'm now rapidly bearing down on the 500th post here on Registrarism (and later in the year will hit 500k unique visits but let's not get too carried away). So, exploiting the pseudo-democratic feel of …

The best book ever written about university life?

Cornford's Microcosmographia Academica A reminder about or introduction to a brief and essential piece of reading for everyone working in higher education. The almost timeless (well, apart from the fact it only features blokes and has an ever so slightly Oxbridge feel) Microcosmographia Academica is of course the essential text for all those with a …

Evaluating University Internationalisation

On the benefits of evaluating international activity A nice short article by Eva Egron-Polak, Secretary General of the International Association of Universities (IAU) published by the Academic Coordination Association. Egron-Polak argues that there is a beneficial emphasis on evaluating internationalisation at present and that this trend means that international activity is being taken seriously and …

True Crime on Campus §18: Black eye incident

True Crime on Campus §18 More extracts from real Security reports. The challenges never end for our hard working and extremely helpful Security staff: 0830 Patrol Security Staff discovered all of the items from a Kitchen in Derby Hall had been thrown out of a window and onto a grassed area. The items were damaged …

Another university league table variation

A league table of universties' social media 'visibility' Econsultancy have published a league table of Russell Group universities' social media profiles or their 'visibility': The visibility score we use here is based on the total number of links a web domain has scored on the six social sites, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Delicious and StumbleUpon, …

More distinctive provision: new course on Beyonce

Responding to market demand? A recent report suggests that a US university is to offer a class on Beyonce. Beyonce is many things: singer, dancer, living pop icon, wife, mother, and namesake of a new breed of horsefly. She is also the subject of a new course being taught at Rutgers University, "Politicizing Beyonce." Taught …

The Imperfect University: who should lead universities?

Academics make the best university leaders Or do they? For the first piece in this series I thought it would be appropriate to revisit and develop a post from early in 2011 on leadership in universities. The focus here is very much on the who rather than the how of university leadership - that's a …