Just as writers and artists today are responding to the Anthropocene through climate fiction and eco art, earlier generations chronicled an environmental crisis that presaged humanity’s global impact. The Anthropocene is a proposed geological epoch that powerfully expresses the planetary scale of the environmental changes wrought by human activity. Yet almost a century ago, New Zealand and Australia were at […] … learn more→

Unpaid internships are finally receiving much-needed scrutiny in the UK, with the prime minister welcoming efforts to close loopholes that allow people to work for free for prolonged periods. The Unpaid Work Experience (Prohibition) Bill, currently going through parliament, seeks to restrict unpaid placements to four weeks, on the grounds that – as the 2017 […] … learn more→

Climate change is resulting in profound, immediate and worsening health impacts, and no country is immune, a major new report from more than 120 researchers has declared. This year’s annual report of The Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change, released today, presents the latest data on health impacts from a changing climate. Among its results, the […] … learn more→

La Trobe University is in talks to discontinue its Hindi program, along with Greek and Indonesian. In the mid-1990s, six Australian universities taught Hindi. If La Trobe ends its program, Australia will be left with just one university (ANU in Canberra) that teaches Hindi. This would be a significant setback for Hindi in Australia. The decision reflects […] … learn more→

Historians are often disappointed when they look closely at the foundational documents of the Humboldt University of Berlin. Many expect to see lengthy treatises on the “unity of research and teaching” from its spiritual founder, Wilhelm von Humboldt, particularly in the short memorandum he wrote in 1809 or 1810 after the institution’s formation in 1809 […] … learn more→

Maths anxiety is the feeling of tension and fear that many people experience when called on to work out a sum. For children, it can lead to behavioural problems in class, as well as physical symptoms such as butterflies in the stomach and a racing heart. Students with high maths anxiety perform worse in standardised maths tests and school […] … learn more→

During the COVID-19 lockdowns, stories have been shared of schools delivering food parcels, phoning struggling families and providing on-site care for the children of key workers. We have seen many schools go much further than their statutory role of educating and safeguarding their pupils, sometimes acting as the most important support institution for whole neighbourhoods. This broader school […] … learn more→

So, 2020 hey? What a trip. I don’t know about you, but concentrating on my work when the world feels like it’s up in flames, literally and figuratively, has been, well – difficult. In order to keep my shit together in front of students and co-workers I’ve been, as a Japanese theme park put it, […] … learn more→

Australia and the UK experience regular annual outrage over vice-chancellors’ pay. This is unsurprising – in Australia their average pay at the 37 public universities topped A$1 million in 2019. Those at prestigious Group of Eight universities were paid more than A$1.2 million on average. Vice-chancellors’ pay has soared over recent decades (although most accepted pay cuts this year […] … learn more→

On 24 November, Twitter exploded with outrage at the announcement that the publisher Springer Nature plans to introduce an open access (OA) option for its Nature research journals, with an article processing charge (APC) of a whopping €9,500 (£8,290 or $11,390). Particular scorn was heaped on a subsidiary pilot scheme called “guided OA”, whereby authors can pay €2,190 in […] … learn more→