I took this photo outside the Institute of Education on Tuesday. Aside from the violent tone of the message, it was striking to this tag 55 miles away from the University of Sussex itself. There was more around Senate House and Birkbeck. I’d be interested to know if there are similar signs on other campuses … Continue reading »
Tagged with universities …
Trolling the Russell Group
I did a post for the New Left Project this week on the idea of a comprehensive system of higher education. It’s something I’ve been ranting about for a while, and the A-level results pushed me into tapping something out. Here’s a taster of the argument: I went to a comprehensive school, why not a comprehensive university? We … Continue reading »
Involving kids in research
I have a piece in the last week’s Research Fortnight on the ways young people might contribute to research, as opposed to simply being asked to sit back and listen to ideas being delivered to them; a challenge to think of under-18s as more than what I have previously described as ‘in waiting’ for adult interactions … Continue reading »
Unraveling the politics of Geek Chic
Adam Corner and I have co-authored a piece for the Times Higher this week on so-called ‘Geek Chic’ and what, if anything, this means for universities. I like to pin computer keys into my ears and handknit necklaces. We wrote it a while back and didn’t think it’d be especially topical. Then A-level results came … Continue reading »
Laughing at students’ mistakes
I have an opinion piece in today’s Times Higher Education: a complaint about their ‘exam howlers’ competition, an annual compilation of silly things students write in exams. I do understand a desire to laugh at these mistakes, and to share them with colleagues, but I still think it’s an unreasonable thing to do. If we’re going to ask students … Continue reading »
Avoiding the magic fact machine
It was Universities Week last week – a campaign to highlight the impact of higher education institutions on UK individuals, communities, culture and businesses. One of the projects rolled out for the event was the web-based ‘FactShare Generator‘. If you happen to like car-crash science communication, go and have a play. Otherwise, I don’t want to dwell … Continue reading »
KABOOM: Exploding ‘impact’
Picture: social researcher number one. This is a drawing of a social researcher. I don’t mean a researcher who studies social relations. I mean this is a researcher who is social; one that’s connects to other people, very simply by citing other researchers. (Yes, sociology-spotters, it’s ‘inspired’ by Bruno Latour. It’s a poor reinterpretation of an early diagram … Continue reading »
Rebooting the seminar
Last week in the Times Higher: My little paean for the seminar, including some notes on I think digital communication might help ‘reboot’ them. Some background: I used to love seminars. As a PhD student, I’d fill my diary with listings for these little academic get-togethers, full of excitement about what I might learn, what new area of … Continue reading »
Happy Birthday UCL
I took this photo in the middle of all the anti-fees protests at the end of last term: a bit of graffiti on the door of the UCL History Department states “no entry to the poor”. I’m posting it because UCL is 185 years old today. Walking around the campus earlier, there didn’t seem to … Continue reading »
STS and the Bernalian nightmare
Steve Fuller gave a seminar on philosophy of science to our MSc students last week. Always good for a provocative one-liner, at one point Steve described 21st century science and technology studies (STS) as “the poster child for neoliberal knowledge production”. These words haunted me for the following two days, as I attended an STS … Continue reading »
