On the way up
The Diary would like to welcome two new female heads of institution. Ann Tate, pro vice-chancellor for quality and enhancement at the University of Ulster, has been appointed rector of University...
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Take a history, nurse
Bamber Gascoigne, former presenter of University Challenge, has teamed up with the Wellcome Trust's Carole Reeves to launch an online account of medical history. HistoryWorld covers seven significant...
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Where Harry potters
Prince Harry has been spotted touring Trinity College, Cambridge, according to a report in student newspaper Varsity . A second-year student was quoted as saying: "We were at a dinner party last...
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No challenge in Chess
The students' associations of the ancient Scottish universities last week launched themselves as a lobby group, Chess, the Coalition of Higher Education Students in Scotland. The organisation said it...
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No-brow art
A Canadian fine arts student at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, has really got herself plastered. After covering every part of her body in wet plaster to make a body mould, she found that...
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Verse blanked
David Morley, senior fellow and director of the Warwick writing programme at the University of Warwick, is worried about the dearth of publishing opportunities for new poets - so worried that he is...
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Feathery claims
A rare bittern, a medium-sized brown heron, was spotted last week at a campus of the University of Lincoln, at the same time as an influx of bitterns was recorded on England's east coast. But the...
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In the news: Bahram Bekhradnia
As director of policy at the English funding council, Bahram Bekhradnia this week appeared in front of the Commons select committee on science as part of its inquiry into the research assessment...
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Time is right for a tough stand on pay catch-up
If other partners on the union side agree (and why would they not?), university employers will be facing a 13 per cent pay claim for academic and academic-related staff this year. Such an increase...
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Archaic system for admissions has had its day
Giving A-level students marks instead of grades - an idea put forward by the Qualifications and Curriculum Agency and the master of New College, Oxford, Alan Ryan, last week - seems a breathtakingly...
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Divisions of work ensure profitable partnerships
Academics do research; industry does business. Collaborations should play to each's strength, writes Paul Leonard. Britain's universities receive far more from industry for research and development...
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Why I... believe that volcanoes can be better studied from a safe distance
Jurgen Neuberg Geophysicist University of Leeds Scientists are currently not able to predict the size or nature of a volcanic eruption, although we are close to being able to predict when it will...
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5* means nothing off campus
Obsessed with their RAE scores, academics are having ever less impact on the cutting edge, argues A. D. Harvey. Revolutionary advances during the 20th century in different areas of science,...
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Horses for courses
Geoff Layer applauds a government initiative to promote a greater variety of learning experiences. Higher education is continually urged to be more inclusive but demand is at best steady....
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Still seduced by the final theory
Brian Pippard looks for God between the arcs of a double rainbow. Steven Weinberg is a distinguished physicist who has found time in recent years to write for a more general readership, and his books...