The Conversation | 3 October 2013 Whenever an unfavourable political opinion poll comes out, you can count on one thing: at least one politician saying they never pay attention to polls. And so it goes for university leaders when the results are in from world university rankings. The Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings 2013-14 released today were not universally good news for Australian universities. While some improved their rank, the overall result was less encouraging. The University of Melbourne lost six places, going from 28 to 34; while the ANU went from 37 to 48 and the University of Adelaide dropped out of the top 200 altogether. The THE’s … [Read more...]
The importance of ideas
03/10/2013 by
30 September 2013 In this email to University of Melbourne staff, vice-chancellor Glyn Davis reflects on the implications of the change of government. As Paul Keating observed, when you change the government you change the nation. This includes spelling conventions: the Administrative Arrangement Order indicates that the spelling "programme", the convention of the Howard era, is preferred over "program", the convention of preceding and succeeding governments (and the spelling advised in the Australian Style Guide). This is not addressed by Davis. On the positive side, Davis mentions initiatives in the international sector (the "New Colombo Plan"), languages education and teacher … [Read more...]