I was sorry to see Dr Wendy Piatt, director general of the Russell Group of leading universities, adopting the propaganda term "the modern universities" to refer to the "post-92" (mostly ex-polytechnic) universities (Letters, 20 August). This is a term the latter have understandably coined to give themselves a positive identity compared with the established, top research universities. However, the term does a disservice to the UK university system as a whole – especially misleading for the all-important overseas applicant – by implying that our best universities are antiquated and hostile to change. More...

By Claire Shaw. Is it misleading to use the term to describe post-92 universities? Where does 'modern' start and end? Have your say below.
In a recent letter to the Guardian, Wendy Piatt, director general and chief executive of the Russell Group, opted for the word 'modern' when describing post-92 universities – or all those that are not part of the Russell Group. The description created quite a stir on Twitter and provoked Alan Bance, emeritus professor of German, University of Southampton to write a letter in response: "The term [modern universities] does a disservice to the UK university system as a whole – especially misleading for the all-important overseas applicant – by implying that our best universities are antiquated and hostile to change." More...

By Léo Charbonneau. An opinion piece we recently published online and in the August-September print edition has garnered much feedback (12 comments online to date, which is a fair amount for us, a specialty higher-education publication in Canada). The article had the innocuous headline, “Internationalizing the curriculum,” but the subhead gave more of a flavour of what it was about: “ESL students and the erosion of higher education.”
The article, by professors Norm Friesen and Patrick Keeney respectively of Thompson Rivers University and Simon Fraser University, recounts their frustration teaching students with poor English-language skills – typically English-as-a-second-language, or ESL, students – or students whose “academic or cultural preparedness is not up to speed.” The presence of these students in the classroom “fundamentally changes teaching and learning, to the detriment,” they write. “Instead of engaging students in disentangling the nuances and subtleties of a particularly important passage from the assigned readings, one begins speaking to the class as one might speak to academically challenged teenagers.” Ouch. More...

By Jayne Marie Comstock. In recent weeks, I’ve been asked frequently to comment on the cost of higher education. Of course, I try to turn that conversation into a discussion about the value of higher education, rather than the cost. But, before I make the cost-value flip, I take advantage of the opportunity to explain that there is a direct, inverse relationship between the cost of tuition and fees at public colleges within a state and the funding that state provides to its public colleges and universities.
Consider this: Data from the U.S. Department of Education reveal that South Carolina has the 7th highest average annual tuition and fees for public higher education and ranks 48th in percentage of institutional revenue provided by state funding. In contrast, Florida has the lowest average tuition costs and the 8th highest percentage of college revenue that comes from state budgets. Read more...

By Barbara Fister. I’ve been around long enough that I remember the first e-mail I ever sent (mistakenly putting the entire message in the subject line because I had no idea how it worked; the person I was trying to reply to kindly called me on the phone and talked me through it). I remember the first time I joined a professional Listserv and how amazing it was to be in conversation with several hundred professionals around the world who were interested in the same things as me. Being at a small institution where you represented a subdiscipline felt pretty lonely. You could read the literature and attend a conference once a year, if you could afford it, but otherwise shoptalk was rare and precious. Having a daily conversation with like-minded folks was wonderful. Read more...

By Scott Jaschik. Derek Bok can hardly be accused of being unwilling to criticize American higher education. His 2007 book, Our Underachieving Colleges: A Candid Look at How Much Students Learn and Why They Should Be Learning More, lived up to its title. But in his new book, Higher Education in America (Princeton University Press), Bok appears impatient with the cottage industry producing books saying that colleges are doomed to fail, cost too much, are too liberal (politically), are too conservative (in terms of unwillingness to change) and any number of other criticisms. Bok -- the former president of Harvard University -- notes very real problems in American higher education. But he writes that "the principal problems with many of the criticisms ... is not that they are wrong, but that their sweeping nature diverts attention from significant weaknesses that can and should be remedied." Read more...

By Joanne Yatvin. Back when I was a child, an important rite on the first day of school each year was the handing out of textbooks.  By the time we had reached the middle grades we could expect to receive a math book, a reading book, a geography book, a history book, a spelling book, a science book, a language book, and maybe a health book, too.  Having all those mysterious tomes piled on our desks that first day was a thrilling experience, especially if some of them were brand new, fresh smelling, and colorful.  All the fifth-grade knowledge in the world was spread out right before our eyes and belonged to us for an entire year!
With a sense of pride and status we carried the whole load back and forth between home and school those first few days, making brown paper covers to protect them and showing them off to our approving parents. More...