True Crime on Monsters University Campus

More from Monsters University. The Monsters University website (promoting the forthcoming film) is a really impressive affair and covers every aspect of university websites pretty convincingly from admissions to campus life and from institutional history to news and events. Was also amused to note there is a Monsters University crime report: Wednesday, 11:21pm Students accused …

Good discipline?

Universities' disciplinary records under scrutiny. Some entertaining reactions to a piece in the Guardian which reported that university students had paid over £0.5m in fines in a year: Universities across the UK issued disciplinary and administrative fines totalling more than £550,000 to students last year. Freedom of information requests from the Guardian have shown students …

Surprising University Recruitment Tools

An unusual attractor for the University of Nottingham. In these highly competitive times with fierce battles being fought between institutions to attract students it is sometimes surprising which factors are influential with prospective students. Entirely anecdotally and picked up from student comments online and on open days it does seem that the very existence of …

Tackling Education Corruption

Higher Education challenges in Indonesia. University World Newshas a story on higher education corruption in Indonesia. It sounds like a challenging environment but it does seem like the issues are being tackled: A graft watchdog in Indonesia has sounded a red alert for the education sector as it recorded some 40 cases of corruption in …

Why MOOCs won’t kill universities

Forget the dire predictions – universities aren’t finished. The MOOC evangelists have predicted that the disruption they will wreak will mean that universities are dead in the water. Christiansen foretells wholesale university bankruptcies within 10 years (since extended to 15 years). Sebastian Thrun goes further, asserting apocalyptically that within half a century there will only …

“Title arousal” issues in German Education

Another German Minister with Doctoral Difficulties. BBC News recently reported on German minister Annette Schavan having her doctorate withdrawn following accusations of plagiarism. This comes barely two years after another minister was found to have plagiarised parts of his dissertation. It's a rather unhappy picture: A German university has voted to strip Education Minister Annette …

Refugee University

Bringing higher education to refugees in Kenya. A piece last year in the Guardian reported that Kenya's Kenyatta University was opening its doors to Somali refugees in Dadaab: Kenyatta University is setting up a campus in Dadaab, which is home to a sprawling complex of camps housing around 470,000 refugees, mainly Somalis who crossed the …

High Speed HE: China Expands Abroad

A Chinese University Expands Into Malaysia. The New York Times has a fascinating piece on a Chinese university expanding into Malaysia: Prime Minister Najib Razak of Malaysia said that the Selangor branch would initially take in 10,000 students, reported Bernama, the Malaysian state news agency. The student body would be divided into thirds, consisting of …

True Crime on Campus §27: happy new year

More true crime on campus: new year, new incidents. Whilst it might have been a bit quieter over the festive period there is always something going on to test our always busy Security team: 1135 Report of a spillage of vegetable oil outside Portland Building Security attended and taped the area off to ensure that …

Launch of the nice university league table

New league table: nearly there. A previous post noted the imminent arrival of the all new European non-ranking ranking. Well now it seems to be nearly complete with only a year to wait until the first ranking is produced. The public launch of the 'multi-dimensional' ranking, which is intended to cover a wider range of …

Speaking with difficulty

New advice from the Charity Commission sows some confusion. The Charity Commission has recently published some new guidance which is intended to help trustees protect their charities against "abuse by extremists." This guide/toolkit though seems to offer a particular challenge to universities which are subject to legislation on external speakers dating back to 1986 which …