Formation Continue du Supérieur

By Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett. By handcuffing marketing emails to university newsletters, Ucas is giving a grubby illusion of choice to hard-up students. If you needed further proof that education has become little more than a commodity, then the news that Ucas is selling access to millions of students to advertisers might just be it. Leaving aside for a moment the murky moral implications of making information about children available to private companies for the purposes of profit (and they are children – the vast majority of those applying to university are under 18), there's also the fact that prospective students' hands are being forced. More...

By Bryndis Woods. Britain and the US can learn something from the Nordic countries about creating a supportive academic environment. I can usually predict when a particular news story is going to clog up my Facebook news feed. Last month, it was Philip Seymour Hoffman's passing, the Olympics, and the Oscars. But in January, I was surprised to see one news article popping up again and again: an article by Michael Booth entitled Dark lands: the grim truth behind the "Scandinavian miracle". More...

By Jon Henley. A new project airs the feelings and experiences of black and minority ethnic students. Inspired by black students at Harvard, who were in turn inspired by the final ringing line – "I, too, am America" – of a 1926 civil liberties poem, a group of black and minority ethnic students at Oxford has launched the website I, too, am Oxford. More...

By Drew Mikkelsen. An attempt to fight racism at a community college may have backfired.
A group of employees at South Puget Sound Community College sent out an invitation to all 300 staffers.
The "Staff, Faculty and Administrators of Color" encouraged employees to reply to the invitation to find out the confidential date and time of what was being called a "happy hour" to "build support and community" for people of color.
The invite made it clear white people were not invited. More...

By Jeff Schweers. When former provost Betty Capaldi Phillips agreed to come back to the University of Florida to direct the startup of the state’s first fully online four-year bachelor’s degree program, it was met with much fanfare.
She had built a reputation as vice chancellor of the State University of New York system and as provost of Arizona State University, helping to launch ASU’s own, nationally acclaimed online program. More...