Students to bear brunt of funds cut | Andrew Trounson | The Australian Higher Education | 30 November, 2011
THE higher education sector took a $640 million hit yesterday as Wayne Swan dug out $11.5 billion in savings. But it is students rather than universities that will bear the brunt of the cuts.
Communication Breakdown Led to Crisis of Confidence in Penn State’s Leadership | Brad Wolverton | The Chronicle of Higher Education | 25 November, 2011
Trustees’ actions amid revelations of scandal offer lessons for other university governing boards. How much information should college presidents share with their governing boards when handling sensitive matters? That question has been at the center of conversations this week as college-governance experts and campus leaders search for lessons from the Penn State child-sex-abuse scandal.
This edition – Our audience awaits |Stephen Curry | Times Higher Education | 24 November 2011
Impact gives science a way to keep the public onside. When, just over a year ago, Vince Cable misquoted the results of the 2008 research assessment exercise in making the erroneous claim that 45 per cent of UK science was not “excellent”, it did not go down well.
via Times Higher Education – .
Universities slam Chris Evans’s surplus talk | Andrew Trounson, Bernard Lane, John Ross | The Australian Higher Education | 23 November, 2011
UNIVERSITIES Australia yesterday hit out at the federal government for inflating the health of the sector’s finances by including grants tied mostly to constructing new research buildings.
An Icon Falls, and a President With Him | Brad Wolverton | The Chronicle of Higher Education | 18 November, 2011
Penn State begins painful struggle to recover from scandal. Fall Saturdays, when Nittany Lions fans fill up 107,000-seat Beaver Stadium, have always defined Penn State University. But after a widely publicized sex-abuse scandal shook the football program—and the university itself—to its core, Saturdays here will never be the same.
English universities enjoy ‘most freedom’ in Europe | Jack Grove | Times Higher Education | 17 November 2011
English universities enjoy the greatest freedom from state interference in Europe, according to research.The high levels of academic freedom, financial independence and decentralised admissions procedures in England are highlighted in an international study of institutional autonomy published this week by the European University Association.
Unis eye debt as surplus rises 8pc | Andrew Trounson | The Australian Higher Educaton | 16 November, 2011
A GOVERNMENT bureaucrat has told universities they are well-placed to take on more debt after a new report on the sector’s finances sparked fresh argument over the need for additional funding. But that debate looks purely academic in the near term after Tertiary Education Minister Chris Evans used the solid financial position of the sector to again warn that there would be no immediate new funding out of the review of base funding.
Chinese Students Prove a Tricky Fit on U.S. Campuses | Tom Bartlett and Karin Fischer | The Chronicle of Higher Education | 11 November, 2011
The China Conundrum
American colleges find the Chinese-student boom a tricky fit. Dozens of new students crowded into a lobby of the University of Delaware’s student center at the start of the academic year. Many were stylishly attired in distressed jeans and bright-colored sneakers; half tapped away silently on smartphones while the rest engaged in boisterous conversations. Eavesdropping on those conversations, however, would have been difficult for an observer not fluent in Mandarin. That’s because, with the exception of one lost-looking soul from Colombia, all the students were from China.
Charitably minded watchdog frets over for-profits | John Morgan, Simon Baker | Times Higher Education | 10 November 2011
Any attempt to legislate to make it easier for private companies to take over universities could be challenged by one of the government’s own watchdogs, it has emerged. The potential impediment to buyouts has been identified amid concerns over efforts by private higher education providers to court David Willetts, with the universities and science minister holding a dozen meetings with such firms in the year to June.
More special treatment claims at UQ | Julie Hare and Bernard Lane | The Australian Higher Education | 09 November, 2011
JUST before the University of Queensland scandal broke that claimed its two most senior executives, finalised two unrelated internal investigations were finalised.
Higher Education in the Headlines 