Laurie Taylor – 2 November 2017

Students at the centre

As readers will know, the biggest change in higher education for a generation came closer last month with the publication of the proposed framework for the new regulator of higher education: the Office for Students.

We are now pleased to provide the following edited version of the office’s intentions as outlined by its chief executive, Nicola Dandridge.

 The Office for Students will first and foremost be concentrating on what students want. Not just short-term or medium-term or long-term students, but all students. And that’s why the office will be going out to meet students so as to be able to discover what they want. But it won’t simply be listening to students. The Office for Students will also be engaging with students. And, of course, we’ll only know how to engage with students by consulting other students on the best way in which to engage with other students. That’s why we’ll be having a student panel to advise on how we might best engage students in finding out what other students want. But we’ll also need to hear from students who don’t want to be involved in the student panel and also from those students who don’t seem to know what they want. That’s why the Office for Students will be focusing on students. Not just on some students. Not just on quite a lot of students. But on all students. That’s where the focus will be. After all, this is the Office for Students.

(continued on page 91)

Source: 

Alamy

European studies

Janet Fluellen, our Director of Curriculum Development, has denied overreacting to the recent letter sent to all higher education institutions by the Eurosceptic Conservative MP Chris Heaton-Harris.

Ms Fluellen agreed that Mr Heaton-Harris’s letter had only asked for information on the teaching of Brexit, but she thought it evident that it had been prompted by a concern that universities were not providing a balanced account of the issue.

It was for this reason that she had decided to close down any courses that might foster the impression that withdrawing from the European Union was not a wholly satisfactory option. These included: What a Load of Brexit (Second-year Politics); Bally-hoo, Bollocks and Brexit (Third-year Sociology); and Bugger Brexit (Postgraduate Economics).

Ms Fluellen refused to comment on rumours that in the further interests of perceived balance, she was also seeking to have the image of Jacob Rees-Mogg removed from the dartboard in the senior common room of Kenneth Clarke College.

Dangerous reading

Professor Gordon Lapping of the Department of Media and Cultural Studies has condemned our Library for placing a “danger warning” inside the cover of his seminal work: Understanding the Media: Problems and Prospects.

Lapping told The Poppletonian that although his work was “extremely radical”, he objected to it being especially labelled in a manner that resembled that recently employed by University College London in regard to books by Holocaust denier David Irving.

However, a spokesperson for the Library insisted that the “danger warning” placed inside Lapping’s book had nothing to do with its inherent radicalism. It merely reminded potential readers that “the ingestion of its contents might induce drowsiness and render the reader unfit to drive”.

lolsoc@dircon.co.uk