Professor Geoffrey Alderman - News

DIRECTOR OF EDUCATIONAL OVERSIGHT AT THE QAA ALDERMAN’S APPLICATION LACKED EVIDENCE OF “INTERPERSONAL SKILLS” AND OF ABILITY TO WORK WITH UK BORDER AGENCY Professor Geoffrey Alderman, the internationally-known authority on the shortcomings of the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA), described himself as ‘deeply shocked’ on receiving feedback following his failure to be short-listed for the post of Director of Educational Oversight at the QAA. ‘Following my utter devastation [Alderman explained] at not being short-listed, and being naturally anxious to improve myself and enhance whatever career prospects I may still perchance enjoy, I asked the QAA for some honest-to-goodness feedback on my failure. This morning I got it, in the form of an email from the Agency’s Human Resources & Organisational Development secretariat.’ ‘Typically, the QAA did not mince its words [Alderman continued]. In a hard-hitting  judgement  it declared that my application had contained ...

Let’s Rejoice As We Commemorate The Heroes Of Bomber Command Today Her Majesty the Queen will unveil in London an imposing but controversial memorial to Bomber Command. Specifically the memorial honours the memory of the 55,573 British and Commonwealth airmen who gave their lives as crew-members of Bomber Command during the Second World War.  Some of these (like my uncle, the late Sargeant Henry Landau, who flew as the “air bomber” in a Mark III Lancaster in 166 Squadron: http://home.cogeco.ca/~dswallow4/MissingCaile.htm ) have no known graves, and their names are therefore already memorialised at the RAF memorial at Runnymede, opened by the Queen in 1953. The memorial that the Queen will unveil today commemorates them and their comrades whose last resting places are known. But it also includes an inscription remembering “those of all nations who lost their lives in the bombing of 1939 – 1945.” Behind this curious wording – and the fact that it appears following what ha...

Mrs Gillian Roberts (née Murray ) was the last Academic Registrar of the University of London ; her retirement in 2006 marked the final stage in the university’s transition from a truly federal academy to what is in effect a loose confederation of academically independent colleges and institutes. As the most senior academic administrator of the university, Mrs. Roberts pivotally assisted in this transition, even though she privately regretted it. Gillian Frances Murray was born on 3 November 1946 and educated at Sydenham High School and the University of Southampton . In 1967 she was appointed to the Academic Department of the University of London , located at the Senate House in Malet Street . A painstaking draftswoman, of scrupulous integrity and equally meticulous discretion, she moved inevitably up the hierarchical ladder, specialising in the robust academic management of the vast portfolio of degree programmes offered both by the federal university, by its constituent col...

"Alex Ferguson, Manager of Manchester United football club, recently received a five-match 'touchline ban' and a £30,000 fine for publicly criticising a match referee. The Football Association (FA) judged him to be in breach of rule E3, which prohibits actions judged as bringing the game into disrepute. Gregory Ioannidis and Geoffrey Alderman, of the University of Buckingham, examine the legal and moral grounds for removing the right to free speech, the reasons for the FA's decision, whether the specificity of sport justifies the removal of such an important right and whether action is possible against the FA for abuse of power." ‘Referee Criticism: Freedom of expression and public criticism of officials,’ World Sports Law Report [G. Alderman & G. Ioannidis] (vol. 9, no.4, April 2011)

On 15 November Business Secretary Vince Cable, whose departmental responsibilities include those related to higher education, delivered a speech to the Girls’ School Association at its annual meeting in Manchester. Much of his address was devoted to the plight of taxpayer-funded universities – specifically English taxpayer-funded universities, which currently include Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial College, University College London, and the London School of Economics. By any university league-table you care to choose, these institutions are amongst the very best in the world. By common agreement they – along with all English taxpayer-funded universities – are grossly underfunded. The coalition government of which Dr Cable is a member had, earlier in the month, signalled its intention to legislate so as to permit all these universities to raise the maximum undergraduate tuition fee they can currently charge from £3,290 to £6,000 or – if they agree to certain conditions – to £9,000 per annu...

The chief rabbi thinks faith is about the courage to live with uncertainty. I beg to differ http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2010/sep/15/rabbi-sacks-faith-certainty

The rabbis' 'statement of principles' on homosexuality is to be welcomed, but it contains little that is new http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2010/aug/10/gay-orthodox-judaism-rabbis