One of the best kept secrets of “higher ed” is how much of it is repetition of high school, or lower. It’s particularly bad at what are called (or used to be called) community colleges, institutions taxpayers were suckered into paying for in exchange for their kids being “taught” the same subjects taxpayers paid for […] … learn more→

For an 18-year-old with limited experience of the earnings and tax system, it’s not easy to foresee the long-term effects of borrowing the average £44,000 cost of a degree. So a new report by London Economics, commissioned by my union, the University and College Union, should be required reading for all Year 13 and college students and […] … learn more→

The BBC salaries report has prompted me to do something that I’ve had in mind for quite some time. So here it is: my salary is £48,327. I am 42, and have had a full-time academic job since 2008, when I was 32. Before that, I took a long time to do a master’s and […] … learn more→

Admin, 1996:   “If you do not get your retention up to 85%, your contract will not be renewed.” –why I had to leave a certain state university. “Retention” is the percent of students that do not drop the course and do not fail. On this particular campus of 50,000+ students, fraud was so rampant that […] … learn more→

How do successful academics write, and how do they learn to write? What are their daily routines, their formative experiences, their habits of mind? What emotions do they associate with their academic writing? And where do they find the “air and light and time and space”, as the poet Charles Bukowski put it, to get […] … learn more→

At the recent annual conference of Nafsa: Association of International Educators in Los Angeles, many leaders in the field of internationalisation emphasised that global solidarity would remain despite US president Donald Trump’s “America first” stance and his curbs on travel and immigration from certain countries. They insisted that talk of deep declines in foreign student […] … learn more→

Every research-active academic is familiar with the process of peer review. Certainly, there are differences between disciplines, and debates over double-blind, single-blind and open (in all its different forms) continue to rage. But, fundamentally, most academics with whom I speak hold up peer review as the “gold standard” to which we should subject work. Yet, […] … learn more→

As you can tell, I love this work. So much so that I started a second podcast on the side called “You’ve Got This” for higher education professionals wanting to increase their confidence and capacity for dealing with the day-to-day demands of academia. Rather than an interview podcast, this is a solo show that usually […] … learn more→

For decades, there’s been a constant push to bring coursework online. From an administrative point of view, online courses are wonderful: almost no overhead, a worldwide market, and possibly infinite class size. The big expense is you need an educator to run (note: I don’t use the word “teach”) the course, but you can use […] … learn more→

I’ve had a look. it’s true. There is actually very little written about co-editing. So it’s not surprising that I’ve been asked to write something about it. Here goes. It might be helpful to begin with a few important basics … starting from when you first think about doing the book or special issue together. […] … learn more→