The University of Nottingham at the Olympics

As has previously been noted here the University of Nottingham is very keen on the Olympics: Six University of Nottingham graduates have bagged Olympic medals for Team GB over the past 20 years, making it the UK’s 7th most successful university at the Olympics. To put this in context, 80 countries have never won an …

The Imperfect University: The Cult of Efficiency

The cult of efficiency I’ve recently been reminded about a great book recommended to me by my former supervisor, Nigel Norris. Half a century since its publication it remains a fascinating read and sits midpoint between two eras of educational change which, perhaps surprisingly, seem to have a lot in common. (Note that a large …

The Beginning of the End for Traditional HE?

Will MOOCs kill universities? No. Forbes carries an expansive piece on the implications of MOOCs and asks "Is Coursera the Beginning of the End for Traditional Higher Education?". Could high-quality MOOCs eventually do to traditional colleges and universities what Craigslist has done to classified advertising in newspapers and what Wikipedia has done to encyclopedias? In other …

The Value of International University Networks

There are more than you might think... The July edition of the International Unit newsletter (which can be downloaded as a PDF here) has an interesting article on the value and power of international university networks. It identifies the following consortia as the main players: Academic Consortium 21 Association of Commonwealth Universities Coimbra Group Santander …

Serious or Celeb? More Honorary Degrees

More Honorary Degree diversions Detailed investigation of Honorary Degrees down the years has led me to a simple conclusion - almost all recipients fall clearly into one of two categories: they are either serious or celeb. Needless to say, the former don't get much press coverage so you could be forgiven for thinking that the …

More strange degrees

Odd by degrees It's graduation season again and helpfully Huff Post has provided a list of rather strange degrees from the US. Some of these are really rather splendid and include: Viticulture & Enology: Grape Growing and Winemaking - offered by UC Davis and Cornell University who "take advantage of their ripe location" in providing …

Yale-NUS – high stakes higher education in Singapore

A lot is riding on the Yale-NUS development A very upbeat report from the National University of Singapore on progress in the Yale-NUS partnership: As the first liberal arts college in Singapore offering a proactive education through residential living and learning right here in the heart of Asia, we are breaking ground on multiple dimensions," the …

From National to Global Universities

A nice piece from David Wheeler in the Chronicle of Higher Education on some of the challenges for universities in going global: Universities, like companies, may need to make the transformation from being a national brand to being a global one. Siemens, once thought of as a German company, now says that it is “a …

Scottish Universities Challenged

Improving governance or constraining autonomy? An earlier post covered the outcomes of a review of governance in Scottish universities and reported a number of concerns about what looked like far-reaching and extremely interventionist proposals. Following this review the Scottish government has now indicated its response and, according to the Scotsman, it looks set to adopt …

A new world ranking of universities

What we've all been waiting for... Yes, it's another new world ranking. This time from the previously  unheard of Center for World University Rankings (CWUR) from Saudi Arabia. The website offers little information about the organisation but we do know that the US has the lion's share of the top 100 places: The distribution of …

Olympic Torch visits University of Nottingham

Olympic Torch at Jubilee Campus The Olympic Torch passed through the University of Nottingham's Jubilee Campus on Friday 29 June. As a special tribute to the Torch relay and for one day only, the University dressed up the Aspire sculpture...