Joseph Epstein’s recent opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal on whether Jill Biden, pedagogy scholar and incoming US First Lady, should parade her right to place “Dr” before her name rightly caused a stir. In his article Epstein said a lot of things, but in the subtext said much more. The internet was alive […] … learn more→

“Crisis” is a word that has been much used during the pandemic to describe the scale and acuteness of the multiple challenges posed. But when, in late November, my father was admitted to intensive care with a recurrence of a cancer he’d been treated for earlier in the year, these metaphorical constructions give way to […] … learn more→

The pandemic has starkly confirmed just how deeply inequality shapes the lives of individuals and communities across the world. Within higher education, social background has long had a decisive impact on access and success. This only risks being exacerbated by responses to Covid-19. Take the shift to online learning. Many people would like it to […] … learn more→

As learning experiences go, the past year has been nothing if not intense. Not that the learning has been confined to students locked down in their bedrooms: universities, too, have been on something of a crash course in digital instruction. And their grades have been distinctly mixed. Those that tried to solve the Covid conundrum […] … learn more→

It’s a tough time to be a university student. Amid a global pandemic, overstretched mental health services and sweeping university staff cuts, students have had to attend classes and hand in assignments while juggling work, family and finances. For international students, isolation, cultural differences and extra expenses added to their worries. Unsurprisingly, university enrolments have […] … learn more→

Agriculture will soon be worth A$100 billion a year to Australia. The industry employs more than 250,000 people, stewards 80% of our land area and drives world-class agribusiness and food sectors. In an uncertain employment market, every new agriculture graduate has a choice of six job opportunities. Agriculture today is fast-paced, global, diverse, reliant on high-end scientific discovery and increasingly responsive […] … learn more→

Dominique, a Black electrical engineering doctoral student, found herself in an awkward situation in the lounge of a hotel where she had been attending a conference on science. A white man at her table assumed a nearby Black woman was on the hotel cleaning staff, so he asked her to clean their table. The woman […] … learn more→

If you are drafting, it is pretty easy to find a lot of advice about the benefits of free writing. Lots of people find that timed writing sprints help to generate content. Unstructured writing is useful to work out what you want want to say. The pomodoro sprint works really well for many academic writers, […] … learn more→

Good news on Covid vaccines has finally provided hope that the international student number may bounce back sooner rather than later. But the journey to something close to “normal” will be a tough one and the final destination may bear little resemblance to the student recruitment market that existed before the pandemic. The most immediate […] … learn more→

  On his first day in office, President-elect Biden vows to take swift action to ensure that the US rejoins the World Health Organization and Paris Climate Accord. But while the US might be about to rejoin the international community, it should not return to its old role as “leader of the free world”. That […] … learn more→