The week in higher education – 22 June 2023

May balls are far from the University of Cambridge’s most arcane traditions, but they still have the potential to bamboozle. This year Oxbridge watchers were invited to enjoy the intercollegiate variations in the dress codes sent out to attendees, as the Daily Mail reported that two colleges, St John’s and Homerton, will allow gowns or black tie to be donned by either sex. Denouncing the annual events for going “woke”, the newspaper also rolled its eyes at the provision of quiet rooms for those who find the events too noisy. Outrage aside, colleges are increasingly striking a balance between enlightenment ideals and the joy of Edwardian-costumed play, with The Times reporting that Corpus Christi would accept “any reasonable effort at black tie” in recognition of the eye-watering prices to rent such fancy dress. Tub-thumping traditionalists can still enjoy a more conventional ball experience at Trinity, which reminded guests that neither lounge suits nor sports blazers would be permitted, while dresses must hang below the knee.

Xi Jinping’s China is ambitious and dynamic, eager to seize the mantle worthy of a multi-millennial civilisation. But with an anaemic market for graduate jobs, many of its freshly minted middle classes would rather take it easy than strive like the generations who hauled the country out of poverty in the last century. Some are celebrating tangping, or “lying flat”, in their graduation photos, a rejection of consumerist striving. The Guardian ran images of students flopped out on campus steps, acting as human hand towel dispensers or dropping their degree certificates into recycling bins. Quoting figures that show youth unemployment hovering around 20 per cent, the newspaper notes that many students enrolled in programmes during the pandemic, when access to many entry-level jobs was locked down. Perhaps the party can forgive a little cynicism?

Salem, Massachusetts enjoys a roaring trade in the macabre. As the site of the famed 1692 witch trials, the city hosts more than its fair share of occult shopping outlets. Customers of Kat’s Creepy Creations in nearby Peabody may have wondered where proprietor Katrina MacLean was sourcing her stock of human heads, brains, skin and bones. The answer, according to federal prosecutors, was the morgue at Harvard Medical School. The Times reported that Cedric Lodge, the morgue’s manager since 1995, has been charged with stealing bits of donated corpses and flogging them online. Peabody’s Ms MacLean was among those allegedly invited to visit the morgue and select the choicest specimens, travelling to Harvard in October 2020 to purchase “two dissected faces for $600 [£469]” from Mr Lodge. Harvard deans George Daley and Edward Hundert confirmed that Mr Lodge had been let go in an online notice titled “An abhorrent betrayal”.

There are serious concerns about the funding of New Zealand’s universities. Among those ringing the alarm is former National Party tertiary education minister Steven Joyce, who used a newspaper column to accuse the current government of keeping institutions on “hunger rations”. Thank goodness then that the University of Waikato, which is battling with its staff over job cuts and pay, found almost NZ$1 million (£488,000) for strategic recruitment and marketing advice from Mr Joyce’s consultancy firm. According to Radio New Zealand, his costly counsel came as the university reduced other outgoings by offering voluntary redundancies and restructuring financially troubled areas. In a column for the New Zealand Herald, Mr Joyce acknowledged that his talk of rationing might be seen as “a bit rich coming from someone who rails against the excesses of too much government spending” but failed to mention his own hefty fees. Then again, as he notes in his column, “it is also about what you choose to spend money on”.

China’s university entrance exam, the gaokao, occupies a special place in the nation’s consciousness. Many a former candidate has woken up in a cold sweat after revisiting it in their nightmares. But for one man, reliving the experience is all too real. Liang Shi, the 56-year-old head of a construction materials business, sat the exam for his 27th time this month. The self-made millionaire has chosen yet again to join 13 million high school seniors taking the gaokao as he pursues his dream of becoming an intellectual, according to the AFP. Like many of his fellow candidates, he told the news agency, he had lived “the life of an ascetic monk” for the past few months, even eschewing drinking and playing mah-jong in the run-up. If at first you don’t succeed…