Shameful. So sorry for you and your colleagues.

Even when you’re bought out, whoever was hired to replace you is unlikely to be some kind of donkey!..

I’ve seen PGRs do the odd lecture (under tight supervision) for professional development, and I’ve seen staff on variously insecure contracts (often top researchers even if junior!) plug various holes in the staffing plan, but in general permanent/research staff do very much teach first-years IME.

Yes, we’re replacing PhD tutors by permanent staff in first-year tutorials (long overdue if you ask me, but that’s a different battle). In any case, this may be a reflection of my fairly narrow experience in UKHE, but PGRs/ECRs giving *core lectures* is… not the usual mode of delivery?

Blood, debt, toil, and arrears: why thirty years of policy struggle has left us without the higher education system we deserve New thinking, ideas & policy solutions for post-18 education in the UK

Coverage of this Post-18 report, which raises the point that universities hire/promote on research but don’t necessarily train/support pedagogy (reasonable though not sure I’m optimistic about the prescriptions) post18.co.uk/blood-debt-t...

Not to mention all the ‘world-class’ researchers who don’t have a postnominal…

I can name multiple departments within like an hour’s travel by public transport of where I am where I know for a fact there are @royalsoced.bsky.social and @britishacademy.bsky.social fellows doing first-year lectures.

The idea that world-class researchers are giving the first-year core course lecture is a bit of a stretch, in our experience.

Bit of a gratuitous drive-by shooting in the @resprofnews.bsky.social morning email!

What, cycles going the direct route rather than one chosen to minimise the impact on motor traffic? That’s a good joke, that.

I do expect you’re right and those of us approaching King’s Theatre from the Polwarth will be invited to do the LGP > Lochrin Pl jiggle or duke it out with the cars.

It wasn’t that good for the ASZ actually because the bins and parking at the shops do narrow down the road just where it would’ve been most useful. But now all that’s left is the short stump before the junction.

It wasn’t massively useful (not so much parked in as generally useless on a road that’s wide enough to invite getting to the lights quickly but not wide enough to give loads of space), but it did go basically most of the stretch from the Lower Gilmore Place corner to the junction.

It does look like they’re not massive in reinstating bike infra removed during those works. The resurfaced Gilmore Place lacks even the painted cycle lane that was there before, even though it’s notionally still part of the NCN!

I don’t know what you’re talking about. I have been told very explicitly that management recognises the anxiety created by 18+ months of uncertainty, that they are committed to meaningful consultation, and that our voices are really important in shaping the future. What else do you want?

I have five year’s worth of contributions into the Norwegian civil service pension scheme from when I did my PhD (PhD students are hired in research contracts and academics are civil servants). That one I like to imagine will survive the heat death of the universe, whereas the USS, well…

The de-southernification of London English robbed us of glorious zh-initial words like zhilling! Still mad about it.

Thinking of my brilliant ex colleagues and students at UU. For so many students in NI the only real choice is between Ulster and no HE at all, and I guess the governments, through their neglect, are picking ‘no HE at all’ for them.

Yes he is! I’m 6”1’ and he’s well taller than me (based on my parkrun encounters…)

Checks out because I’ve been to Brașov and was assured it was most definitely Central Europe.

Academics, teachers, civil servants, doctors — almost as if the people near the front line of the dismantling of state capacity are worried about it?..

The vibes difference is downstream of Everything Is Gender, surely.

For non-work, I’m firmly in the price discrimination category — I have so many books waiting to be read I will rarely be so desperate I can’t wait for the paperback for the price… (OK and if I *am* desperate I have access to some excellent libraries, which is admittedly cheating)

For work, hardbacks are nice (and mass-produced perfect binding paperbacks aren’t great), but I’d almost never buy them — though I gratefully gobble them up in exchange for reviews and the like. It can be annoying to wait for the more affordable paperback though.

Curious to see a version of this for academic books — especially not the predatory ‘library only’ hardbacks and not the academic/trade crossover that just falls under the blog post, but normal academic books that sell a dozen library copies (most libraries just buy the ebook) and then you wait

South Welsh English also has a tail/tale distinction that seems (in part) to track the spelling rather than the historical pre-merger pattern, presumably also because of its history involving L2 learners

Yes but that was proper advertising.

*hollow laugh in Scottish* (don’t @ me train people, I grew up in Russia, I’ve spent more time doing long-distance train travel than most of you, I like trains, but going on holiday, with children past a certain age, nope)

This is just the usual gurning from people who wish Edinburgh city centre to retain its historic vibe and important period features, such as Range Rovers, parking everywhere, and rubbish sacks on railings. Ads, like cafés and bike lanes, are déclassé, probably foreign.

They’re right that ‘the essay’ in a mass system is not the same as The Essay at Oxbridge, and the sausage factory aspect of it often undermines its value. You’re right that the problem is an unwillingness to fund more than sausage factories for the masses, be they essays or folios or what.

At least they talk back! Not like ~some people~ (*cough* Swedes *cough*) who switch to English the moment you give yourself away as a learner a tiniest bit.