Since the Labour party were elected in early July to form the UK Government, I have been eagerly awaiting announcements of plans to try and fix the crisis facing British universities. Having spent the last five years researching a PhD thesis at the University of Essex which examined the relationship between political narratives of social...Read More

Interview conducted by Sean McMahon Academic staff do the work that defines a university: teaching, scholarship and research. But too often in British universities the voices of academics are marginalised by undemocratic forms of governance. Top-down, unaccountable, corporate-style management has increasingly replaced collegial decision-making, stifling the autonomy of academics and impeding rather than facilitating academic...Read More

Words by Lydia Dye-Stonebridge, joint runner up in the CDBU Essay Prize Competition 2022. I once worked for a large corporate, and they saw it fit to test my personality. The assessment plotted me against the Randian axes of dominance and compliance, influence and steadiness. My line of best fit demonstrated that while in work,...Read More

Review by Patrick Ainley, former professor of training and education at the University of Greenwich and regular contributor to the Post-16 Educator. The argument in this book is that mass higher education, for all its multiple and irreversible achievements, is experiencing a general crisis’ (150). It is well timed. 58 UK universities struck for three days...Read More

Words by Dr Heather McKnight, founder of the social enterprise Magnetic Ideals and Doctor of Legal Studies. In 1970, the Commission on Academic Freedom and the Law (CAFL) released research exposing changes in how universities were using the law: a discontinuity that both marked and reflected the historical moment. The joint commission between the National...Read More