Laurie Taylor Column
I'm ready for you now, Maureen. Thank you, Professor Lapping. Excuse the formality of this occasion - but as this is your annual performance review, it is important that we stick closely to agreed...
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Alan Ryan
The ethos of Silicon Valley is "the next big thing". So it seems disloyal to sit in Palo Alto, surrounded by the headquarters of Hewlett-Packard, Genentech and innumerable law firms that have grown...
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Leader: Physics revival needs debate not business plans
Physicists love numbers - this week, they are claiming that 43 per cent of UK manufacturing employment is in "physics-based" industries. The figure seems suspiciously precise, but there is no doubt...
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Leader: Access distinctions with slight differences
When does a benchmark become a target become a quota? And is a funding council target, approved by the education secretary, different from a government target? In the looking-glass world of public...
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York paves nation's road out of ruin
In rebuilding Afghanistan, Haneef Atmar, the minister charged with the task, will draw on the skills, ideas and shared experiences that he gained from a year at York University. I was 11 years old...
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Bohemian rhapsody, Oxford style
Eight years ago, the fat lady sang for opera at Oxford University. Now a group of students is bringing it back. Adrian Mourby reports. "John, I can see you," shouts a shaven-headed young man, pacing...
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Bring a comfy chair to the lab in your search for inspiration
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...
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How Mr Arthrobalanus saved Charles Darwin from Baron Munchausen's fate
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....
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There's comfort in hanging on to your head
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...
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Syllabus driver on the virtual highway
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...
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Managerial madness 3
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...
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Lessons in irony
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...
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Ban the bullies
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...
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Ig Nobel quest?
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...
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Some home truths 1
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...