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It is right for universities to co-operate with business, but not to cater to a demand for out-of-the-box employees

Sally Feldman has spotted a new breed of troublemaker appearing on campus

Kevin Fong says the experiments at Cern represent science at its finest

Mary Evans says the sector stands to gain from greater use of retired scholars' wisdom, experience and independence

Educational research is meaningless and out of touch because it is completely divorced from wider social concerns, argues Dennis Hayes

At first, those chosen for academic audit were startled rabbits, says Frank Burnet; soon they had wised up to minimise the risk of injury

Monographs, conferences and keynotes are vital elements of the modern scholarly world, but they are by no means the only, let alone the best, ways to spread ideas and insights. As Tara Brabazon notes, teaching can be a powerful, and inspiring, method of disseminating findings

Using a 20th-century princess to market an 18th-century duchess betrays a wider malaise, says Hannah Greig

Universities need exemption from the time-wasting - and costly - absurdities of the Freedom of Information Act, argues Jon F. Baldwin

In an era of media-manipulated ¡®reality¡¯, Tara Brabazon is inspired by helping students learn to use oral history techniques to capture genuinely authentic voices

Attacks on the grading system will not improve standards but will harm the UK's reputation, claims Malcolm Grant

Treat your staff to lashings of 1940s-style good sense and you jolly well won't go far wrong, advises Blyton devotee Sally Feldman

Alan Ryan says growing disparity in graduate premiums doesn't bode well for HEIs

The trashing of Howard Atkinson's potato trial transcends the genetics debate and could have profound consequences for food security

The grading scale for students' work is a twisted mess and will need to be overhauled soon, says Martin Luck

The PowerPoint presentation is redefining public speaking. Tara Brabazon argues that it is an unnecessary evil

In denigrating students, devaluing teachers and equating degrees with big salaries, the media and the Government damage society

Tim Birkhead dispels the myth that lecturers spend three months on the beach

After two weeks on holiday, with time to think, Gloria Monday considers whether she should leave the exhausting world of academia take the less-regimented option of life in the military

British academics must stop being monoculturalists and embrace the influx of foreign students, says William Burns

The dilution of PhD standards damages the status of every aspect of UK academe, claims Kevin Sharpe

Pictures of smiling girls clutching A grades belie the fact that they are still unrepresented in elite institutions, claims Miriam David

Wikipedia is created mostly by teenage male computer nerds, so Martin Cohen worries about its growing clout among 'scholars'

Textbooks have been neglected in favour of other media, but Tara Brabazon argues the case for their importance

Arts and humanities advocate Philip Esler offers to fill a yawning gap in No 10's strategy for realising Britain's potential

Felipe Fern¨¢ndez-Armesto says we must choose our commemorations wisely

Beware those who want information - and informers. An anonymous academic considers the police-state side to 'managerial techniques'

It's time to start exchanging gifts and sharing cultures with the digital natives who are our students, says Fintan Culwin

Developed along idiosyncratic lines since the age of Napoleon, France's universities must embrace globalisation, Zoe McKenzie says

The spark of connection between lecturers and students cannot be duplicated, although digitisation has its place in preserving special, life-changing lectures

Economic woes and political uncertainty mean the sector must take charge in proposing new policies, says Deian Hopkin

Sally Feldman on the deals, desperation and bottom-line realities of clearing

Conventional wisdom says universities do rather well in a recession. Don't count on it this time, warns John Craven

Kevin Fong's clash with the beautiful game leaves him sick as a parrot

Jonathan Taylor posits that our emphasis on the advancement of knowledge can crush creativity

Graham Manville and Gill Schiel outline the challenges institutions face harnessing the potential of this new whirlpool of talent

The precedents, the tear-stained notes, the wisdom of Solomon (The External): Frank Burnet wonders whatever happened to exam boards

Stop decrying the signal-to-noise ratio in online scholarly resources, says Tara Brabazon, and give open-source web journals your full support

Ninety years after the suffragettes' first victory, June Purvis reflects on wars still being fought on behalf of women's rights

Nostalgia was once taboo in academe but a new generation is unafraid to explore longing and loss, says Alastair Bonnett

Don't let students' howlers drive you mad, says Ken Smith. Accept their most common mistakes as variant spellings ... and relax

Country music is ethnography with a banjo, and Tara Brabazon discovers that it is as relevant to university life and Friday-night Eastbourne as it is to Appalachia

The creation of an Innovation Index is a long-overdue opportunity to right funding wrongs, argues Les Ebdon

Alan Ryan wishes Oxford's big donors would share their financial expertise

It is time for the West to listen and learn from Muslim moderates and radicals alike, insists Cynthia Keppley Mahmood

Frank Furedi says the reason the degree classification system is broken is too little autonomy, not too much

Widening-participation pieties that ignore class are as much a fantasy as J. K. Rowling's magical-mirror Oxbridge, says Mary Evans

Wellington was once a town where espresso was dangerously pretentious, but an innovative alliance of galleries, libraries, archives and museums has helped rebrand the New Zealand city

The economic slowdown calls for strong leadership and new ways of working across boundaries, says Ewart Wooldridge

The tyranny of 'the hypothesis' has made science too timid, says Tim Birkhead

Press-ganged into attending the annual graduation ceremony, a sweaty and begowned Gloria Monday wishes some of the cash on show was heading her way

The fuss over external examining and standards misses the point - degrees really are no longer what they were, says Kevin Sharpe

At a seminar in Romania, Jon Baldwin finds that this new member of the EU has valuable lessons for UK universities

The work of advising select committees is demanding and rigorous, and it deserves reward in the REF, argues Steven Barnett

Students¡¯ pleasure in writing is often knocked out of them by formal schooling. Blogging may become their only outlet of expression and, with a little encouragement, it is possible to reignite their love for the written word, suggests Tara Brabazon

Universities' admissions of their failings have been met with calls for stringent supervision, surely the wrong approach entirely

Marking schemes are an admission of failure, says Felipe Fern¨¢ndez-Armesto

David Baker argues that forward-thinking higher education providers see opportunities, not unremitting gloom, ahead

Roger Brown and Geoffrey Alderman ask if the QAA and the external examining system must change to continue to ensure quality