The armchair is ideal for idle fancy, while the lab bench can be the graveyard of creativity. But combine them and, argues Peter Atkins, the results can be spectacular. Armchairs alone have never...
Why did Darwin study barnacles for eight years, even ignoring doctors as his health failed? Was it the subject's alienness and the lure of a new truth hidden in the commonplace, asks Rebecca Stott....
As Oxford elects a new chancellor this weekend, Claire Sanders looks at a job that has cost some their lives but is now extreme only in its vagueness. In the 16th century, five of Cambridge...
Don't just copy the classroom with e-learning, use it creatively to shake up the curriculum and the students, says e-guru Roger Schanck. Stephen Phillips reports. For an e-learning evangelist, Roger...
Steven Schwartz believes elections are outdated because people vote only for those who will give them what they want. So that's the problem with democracy. He also maintains managers must be selected...
Lord McCarthy tells only part of Ruskin College's story of crisis ("Ruskin left in lurch", THES , March 7). The governing executive, dominated by external trade unionists, has voted for a business...
Edinburgh University PhD student Brian Dempsey has no empathy for academics who encounter unacceptable student conduct (Letters, THES , March 7). This reminds me of the 1970s, when men who sexually...
Glynis Breakwell ("Bath gets nod for double vision", THES , March 7) must be angling for an Ig Nobel ("Lab laughs", THES , March 7) with Bath's £200 million Swindon move. Courses offered at Swindon's...
In suggesting that differences in attainment in schools and colleges are behind social class divisions in higher education participation, the government mistakes correlation between two measures of...
I attended a state school and was encouraged to perform as well as possible in public examinations. Now that "universities recruiting students with less than three Cs at A level will get a premium...
No doubt the farmers interviewed by Matt Lobley and Matt Reed ("Please don't come around, we're having a bloody nightmare", THES , March 7) share the countryman's pride of hiding poverty behind hard...
Rick Rylance and Judy Simons (Letters, THES , February 21, 28) wrongly suggest that I paid belated attention to the English benchmarking exercise. At Sussex, we discussed the draft document, I wrote...
So Sir Clement Freud used the Royal Mail to deliver himself for his installation as student-elected rector of St Andrews (News, THES , February 28). But what institution did he arrive at, when, and...
Staffordshire University may believe its course for PhD supervisors is "trailblazing" but Edge Hill has, since 1999, offered a postgraduate certificate in research degree supervision validated by...
Why does Steven Schwartz think that people who are appointed to positions such as dean or head of department have more "dignity and authority" than if they had been elected (Soapbox, THES , March 7...