Voting for Committees

Faculty Representation in Governance. An interesting piece on faculty representation in governance the Chronicle of Higher Education. The argument is that faculty representation in governance structures is not always ideal: Perhaps this will sound familiar from your campus: Some appalling, or just bizarre/confusing, initiative will come down the pike, and faced with faculty protests, the …

University top targets for graduate employers

Flying high. The Telegraph reports on the results of the latest High Fliers survey of employers which shows the universities targeted by the largest number of top employers in 2012-13. The top 20 is as follows: 1. Warwick 2. Nottingham 3. Manchester 4. Cambridge 5. Bristol 6. Durham 7. Oxford 8. Birmingham 9. Bath 10. …

Yet more support to help UK HE internationalise?

More international support for Higher Education. A year ago HEGlobal, the new portal for helping universities develop transnational education capability, was 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, …

The Imperfect University: what do we know about HE leadership?

What do we know about leadership in higher education?   Not a lot, seems to be the answer. I’ve written a bit before in the Imperfect University series about leadership in universities. There is a new report out which seeks to sum up what we know about leadership in HE. This report, written by Professor …

Beyond the Brian Cox effect

Extravagant claims about one person's influence on Physics recruitment. The Telegraph comments on the 'Brian Cox effect' and suggests that it has resulted in a surge in demand for physics: Manchester has always been a popular choice for physics but the university admitted that a recent rise in applications had been partially driven by the …

Secrets and Interdisciplinarity in 1928: The Combination Room

A reminder of the opening of the Trent Building The office recently received a copy of this commemorative brochure from the opening of the Trent Building of what was then University College Nottingham. The booklet contains a set of line drawings of the Trent Building together with a detailed and somewhat florid commentary by the …

Higher education funding letters: another bundle of joy

On government HE funding letters The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills has written to HEFCE with the Department's annual message on funding and helpful bag of instructions. The letter sets out Government funding and priorities for HEFCE and for higher education for the second year of the new financial arrangements for higher …

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Registrarism

More details on Latin America from the QS rankings

A post from some time ago noted the new found enthusiasm in Latin America for rankings. This has been borne out by the publication in 2011 and now 2012 of a specific Latin american league table by QS.

The introduction to the table notes that

QS University Rankings: Latin America was published for the first time in 2011, this generated a huge amount of interest, both within the region and further afield.

This is perhaps unsurprising: Latin America is a hugely dynamic, fast-growing continent, that has recently identified higher education as key to its development, yet in global rankings it has mostly been conspicuous by its absence.

…

As in 2011, the rankings adopt the principles of the QS World University Rankings, augmented with measures of particular regional application.

Academic and employer reputation surveys remain the backbone of our approach…

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The Imperfect University: Truly Transnational

There is something close to a genuinely international university Last year Andrew Stewart Coats, commenting on his appointment and the interesting plans for the new partnership between Warwick and Monash Universities, asserted that in higher education: there has been little or no globalization in how we organize ourselves; no global entity runs viable universities in …

Sustainability charts: UI GreenMetric World University Ranking 2012

Now out : the Green Metric World Ranking 2012 This world university league table first appeared in 2010 and was headed by University of California, Berkeley. Last year the University of Nottingham led the field (sadly down to second this year). In 2012 it is the turn of Connecticut. The rest of the top 10 …

Where are the statues of great academics?

There really aren't a lot of them about Perhaps it's because so many are involved in committees and are therefore disqualified by G K Chesterton's comment: "I've searched all the parks in all the cities and found no statues of committees". But really there aren't huge numbers - I can recall statues of Newton and …

Branch campus enrolments – some interesting UK data

Some interesting stats from the UK Higher Education International Unit The International Unit recently published its summary of International higher education in facts and figures - Winter 2012-13. The report contains some interesting information which covers the majority of the UK higher education sector. One particular table (on page 9 of the report) caught my eye, the number …

These charming men. And women.

Stop me if you think you've heard this one before. A couple of years ago I noted a report on the teaching of "life skills" to students preparing to leave home for university and having to look after themselves for the first time. Now there is a report on how universities are stepping in to …