News and views about philosophy, the academic profession, academic freedom, intellectual culture, and other topics. The world’s most popular philosophy blog, since 2003.
Then my question is how many of ordinary mathematicians also qualify as artists of their profession…
The phrase ‘Does the fact’ naturally invites howls of derision: it’s a fact that every child knows that the Japanese…
I think I would answer “Does the fact that the United States of America has never experienced a foreign occupation…
Rex Martin was a first class person with a sharp intellect and wry sense of humor. He was an excellent…
21. Is style the last refuge against AI?
All about class.
Excellent questions! Re question 6, I have actually already invented a new punctuation mark. I can’t type it here, as…
The misery continues. (Earlier coverage.) Given the earlier thread on UK higher education finances, one has to worry that this scenario will recur elsewhere. Comments are open for those with more information or relevant links.
(Thanks to Peter Kail for the pointer.)
Shocking. At least in my area (philosophy of science) the Theoretical Reasoning research cluster has been obtaining grants and creating international research networks to a degree that far outweighs the repuation of the University of Kent. It seems like every other year I hear about some research grant that they've won or find they're involved in organising some workshop that I want to attend.
I haven't been in UK academia for a while now, but my impression is that a lot of university chancellors bet on expansion via international students and invested in increasing capacity, then lost those bets. Meanwhile, by not being indexed to inflation, the government's tuition fee policies have managed to both infuriate students and defund universities. And the outlook is grim, because the main politically viable alternative (sufficient taxpayer funding of higher education) is not on the horizon, regardless of who wins the next election. The situation might continue until the rate of university bankruptcies becomes embarassingly large, but there's a lot of hardship for UK academics between here and there…
The Philosophy Department at Kent is financially viable. It is home to some stellar researchers, with an impressive track record. What kind of message is this sending to the rest of the University?
Thanks for posting this, Brian. This cuts me particularly close as I spent 20 years at Kent helping to build it up; I left at Christmas for Leeds. Just to assure folks with my BPA Director hat on that we will do all we can to help safeguard posts and the dept., as we always do when colleagues are facing threats. Please look out for more information in the coming days. I know your support would be much valued by staff and students at Kent.
—–
KEYWORDS:
Primary Blog
Leave a Reply