Universities gripped by puppy mania

 Puppies for relaxation It's exam time and I've written before here about the advent of the puppy room as a means of addressing exam stress. All parts of the media seem to have got rather excited about this and other stress-busting approaches as this  BBC News story demonstrates:   University students have ordered hundreds of …

Capital spend spend spend

Changing patterns of capital spending in universities   HESA recently released details of HEIs' capital spend in 2012-13 showing the total spend on buildings and equipment and the sources of the funds used:   Times Higher Education has a brief piece on this and notes that, unsurprisingly, as external funding for capital expenditure has declined, …

Timetabling can be fun

A Real Higher Ed Challenge A really fascinating article by @Graham_Kendall on the maths behind an exam timetable. It's one of those things that affects everyone at university - staff and students. And it's hugely important both in terms of teaching and learning and resourcing. But timetabling exams is far from straightforward as this piece …

An Ethics App?

Difficult ethical decision? There's an app for that I was taken by this interesting development in applying academic research to real world issues. The Chronicle of Higher Education has a story on a new mobile app intended to help with decision support on those difficult ethical issues: The disclaimer on Santa Clara University’s new mobile …

Ranking systemically

The new U21 systems ranking Following on from last year's second league table, U21 has now published its 2014 Rankings report, which is intended to give an overview and ranking of higher education systems across the world. The full report gives much more information about the rankings but in summary: The widened definition of Connectivity …

Needed: More Money, Money, Money

Higher Education needs more and better fundraising. And fundraisers A new publication from HEFCE.on developing the HE fundraising workforce: This report was commissioned by HEFCE to address one of the recommendations in 'Review of Philanthropy in UK Higher Education: 2012 status report and challenges for the next decade' (the Pearce report), specifically the future development …

A New Student Services Role?

Does every University need a Course Concierge? The Chronicle of Higher Education recently had a piece about the development of the idea of the 'Course Concierge'. The label seems to have been assigned to Paul Neill title who is director of the core curriculum at the University of Nevada at Reno, by the students there. …

2015 Complete University Guide League Table

It's spring and it's time for the first league table of the season. Once again it's the Complete University Guide which is first to publish this year. The top 25 is as follows: 1 (1) Cambridge 2 (2) Oxford 3 (3) London School of Economics 4 (6) St Andrews 5 (5) Durham 6 (4) Imperial …

Mobilising the humanities

Humanities - helping to meet global development challenges I was pleased to be present at the launch of this study which was conducted by Ipsos on behalf of the British Council. It was launched on 1st May at Going Global 2014, the British Council's annual conference for leaders in higher education which took place in …

Students behaving badly

Crimes and misdemeanours at university I was greatly taken by this list of fineable offences for 18th-century students at Harvard: Offense #19, "Cutting off the lead," seems to refer to the lead on the college building's roof. Lead was once used for roofing material (especially for more expensively-constructed buildings), and such buildings suffered from the …

Skills not swimming

Alternatives to physical education tests A previous post reported on the reduction in the number of swimming tests or other physical education assessments which formed part of graduation requirements at US universities. Now Inside Higher Ed has a report on another university, Notre Dame, "a sports juggernaut", which is making the shift too: The university …