"SoTL is a field still making itself. Editors make curatorial decisions about what counts, who contributes, which questions matter." Alicja Syska, Daniela Gachago, Lee-Ann Sequeira on curation vs gatekeeping, developmental reviewing&cross-fertilisation with teaching🎧 blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducat...

Seven years of sparking dialogue 🎂 Lee-Ann Sequeira and Michelle Pauli mark the LSE HE Blog's anniversary by picking 5 posts that made them stop and think: AI ethics, accent discrimination, merger culture, playfulness as radical pedagogy, measuring academic freedom. blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducat...

What if you taught ethnography through theatre? Cristiana Giordano & Greg Pierotti developed "affect theatre" - students collaborate to build performances from research, learning to feel the connection between experience & scholarly representation. blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducat...

In a post-truth world, how do you teach students to separate fact from belief? Jake Wright explores naïve scepticism in first-year philosophy: the danger when students think there are no answers because philosophy deals with beliefs. blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducat...

"Open questions can be frustrating." But in disability studies pedagogy, they're invitations for reflection that lead to concrete practice changes. Miro Griffiths on teaching with resistance, interdependence, and persistent questioning. blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducat...

"The real risk is not that students will use AI; but that educators continue to grade outputs AI can generate while pretending they still certify human competence" – Ignacio Aravena Gonzalez on redesigning assessment: grade the audit, not the artefact blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducat...

"The only way you say goodbye to the old institution is if there's a lived story of the new institution that people buy into." Elisabeth Hill, Chris Husbands & Huw Morris on university mergers: why strategy must trump short-term panic and culture work takes decades 🎧 blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducat...

"There's no chance in hell for anyone who actually sounds like Stormzy making it in academia." Aymen Idris on UK HE's sonic straitjacket: why an RP accent remains the unofficial entry fee & code-switching is exhausting, unacknowledged labour. blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducat...

The education development centre dilemma: focus on scholarship and be asked "what are you doing to improve teaching?" Focus on practice and risk being dismissed as admin rather than academic partners. Claire Gordon & Sam Smidt offer a solution to the identity crisis. blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducat...

Research funding is being restructured.. Students now work 13+ hours a week and live at home. The traditional university model won't survive. Yet most institutions plan as if minor adjustments will suffice. They won't, says Huw Morris blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducat...

Are academics complicit in authoritarian encroachment? There are three myths about scholarly life under autocratic pressure that academics use to let themselves off the hook, writes Tamas Ziegler blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducat...

Creating an environment for open dialogue in higher education has never been more challenging – or more essential. These five posts explore how educators create space for difficult conversations and conflicting perspectives. blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducat...

For our last post of the year, academics from across the world reflect on the top HE stories in 2025. blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducat... Comment below to share your 2025 HE picks! ⭐️

Must classrooms always be boring? Listen to our latest podcast, hosted by LSE HE Blog Fellow Ijeoma Njaka, and hear from three academics who are doing things differently, from taking a writing class onto a basketball court to filling seminar rooms with works of art blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducat...

With the news that Nottingham is just the latest uni to close music courses, @thomasgraves.bsky.social explores why music degrees seem to be such an easy target for the axe - and why that's a tragedy blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducat...

In the third and final segment of his interview, LSE President and Vice-Chancellor Larry Kramer explains the optics of protest on campus and how it might be viewed by alumni, donors, and the government — “… nothing about that is more or less ‘British’.” blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducat...

“Self-expression shouldn’t become more important than human relationships,” says LSE President & Vice-Chancellor Larry Kramer. He argues that teaching constructive disagreement helps students express themselves and respect others. Read Part 2 of the interview: blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducat...

No making statements, no taking sides. Larry Kramer, President and Vice-Chancellor of the LSE, advocates for thoughtful debate and explains why he'll never condemn lawful speech in the first of a three-part interview with the LSE Higher Education Blog. blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducat...

“Rather than only teaching content that challenges dominant perspectives,” @moesz.bsky.social feels the role of the teacher is to engage with a range of perspectives that emerge in the classroom. Read her full blogpost: blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducat... What do you think the role of the teacher is?

Are the students in your classroom as free to speak as you think they are? Chen-Ta Sung explores the paradox of diverse classrooms inhibiting diverse viewpoints, resulting in a spiral of silence - for educators as well as students. blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducat...

Today's complex challenges call out for interdisciplinary thinking - and such courses are growing in popularity. But great interdisciplinary teaching is about much more than adding disciplines and stirring, says LSE100 co-director Jillian Terry blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducat...

The awarding gap is not a neutral metric, says Josephine Gabi. Racially minoritised students are structurally marginalised by the metrics used to assess their success – but shifting from gap-thinking to debt-thinking could make a difference: blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducat...

How free are academics? Katrin Kinzelbach, principal investigator of the Academic Freedom Index, addresses the current state of academic freedom and the threats it faces in this stimulating interview with Tamas Dezso Ziegler blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducat...

Universities collect student voice through surveys but ignore it when it challenges their decisions, says Moé Suzuki. Is there another way? blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducat...

Have we reached PhD saturation point? With doctoral student demand outstripping supply of academic jobs, it’s time for governments, universities, and prospective PhD students themselves to take action to avoid regret, says LSE HE Blog Fellow Huw Morris blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducat...

Confessions of a Luddite teacher: Anna Lukina sets out the case for edtech pessimism as she swims against the tide in a higher education environment replete with learning technology blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducat...

Is the lure of AI blinding universities to the power of the tools already in its pockets, Nick McIntosh asks. Perhaps higher education needs a reality check when it comes to tech blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducat...

Tamas Dezso Zeigler says we must understand the gravity of government interventions in higher education in order to resist “[government] efforts to impose a uniform ideological framework within academia." blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducat...

Has speculative fiction challenged your thinking or world view? Explore some fresh spec fic campus novel reviews in Ijeoma N Njaka's new blog post, and expand your summer reading list! blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducat... #SpecFicSummer

Chen-Ta Sung explains that the "recruitment of international students to maintain financial stability...risks reinforcing existing social inequalities. It privileges those who can afford elite global credentials" in this new blog post. blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducat...

How radical is your imagination? Capital R or lower-case r? From campus facility plans to humble textbooks, subverting the status quo can happen in the most unlikely places, says LSE HE Blog Fellow, Ijeoma N Njaka blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducat...

How do you talk to a populist? With populism on the rise, educators need to understand how to respond when populist discourse finds its way into the classroom. Edda Sant debunks three common myths about populist challenges to higher education blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducat...

Is AI to the 2020s what calculators were to the 1980s? Listen to Maurice Chiodo (@cser.bsky.social) draw a comparison between these two tools in Episode 1 of our podcast on the ethics of AI in teaching. blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducat...

In Episode 2 of our podcast on the ethical use of AI in teaching, Claire Gordon, Maha Bali, Maurice Chiodo, and Emma McCoy debate the issues they encounter integrating AI – consistency, AI skills development among faculty, disciplinary identities and values. blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducat...

In our latest podcast, Claire Gordon discusses the ethical use of AI in teaching, learning and assessment with @mahabali.bsky.social, Maurice Chiodo, and Emma McCoy. What responsibility do educators have to their students, the institutions, and themselves? blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducat...

Meet the LSE HE Blog Fellows – four academics from across globe who will be sharing their insights over the course of 2025, covering the internationalisation of HE in Asia, HE policy, radical imagination in the US, and heterodox perspectives in authoritarian times blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducat...

As we consider approaches that range from a warm embrace to cautious acceptance to resistance to AI in higher education at the #LSEPKUAI conference, we need to recentre our humanity and question the tech inevitability narrative, says @mahabali.bsky.social.

How do you approach accountability and transparency when using AI in your academic practice? @mahabali.bsky.social brings together a range of voices to contribute to a more nuanced ethics of AI in education. blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducat...

How do you start a new university and create an appealing brand when nobody knows who you are? Bryan Penprase and Noah Pickus consider some of the tricky issues founders face, focusing on new unis from Minerva and NYU Abu Dhabi to Ashesi University in Ghana blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducat...

What is the impact of authoritarian regimes on universities in Türkiye, Hungary, and the US? @seckinsertdemir.bsky.social, Tamas Dezso Ziegler, and David Swartz discuss on our latest podcast episode. blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducat...

Still time to apply (closing date 10 March)! Are you a scholar interested in drawing attention to important issues in higher education? Could you share your specialist insights with a global audience? The LSE HE Blog Fellowship could be for you. Application details: blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducat...

We have ruined essay writing by forgetting about it as a process and treating it as a product. It's time to rethink writing (and how we teach it) and, ironically, the challenge of AI can help, writes Alicja Syska blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducat...

How can academics use autoethnography to voice criticism of HE without falling foul of the law? Margaret Merga explains the implications for researchers, educators, and supervisors. blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducat...

Are you a scholar interested in drawing attention to important issues in higher education? Could you share your specialist insights with a global audience? The LSE HE Blog Fellowship could be for you! Application details here - blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducat... - closing date 10 March. Please share!

Want to know the ingredients of a high impact research paper? David Carless @carlessdavid.bsky.social, Professor of Feedback Literacy, University of Hong Kong, walks us through his recipe for academic research impact with the case of a paper with stunning metrics blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducat...

While China is proactive in recruiting African students, Africa seems to play a more passive role – does this imbalance in student mobility pose future risks to Africa’s higher education? Jane Knight and You Zhang pose the question blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducat...

Thinking of introducing some new tech - probably (inevitably?) AI-based - into your course this year? @mahabali.bsky.social has five questions you should definitely ask yourself first: blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducat...

i was delighted to contribute to LSE HE Blog's exploration of academic life on film. I discuss the overconfident ornithologist of Hitchcock's THE BIRDS (1963), and other film scholars discuss an eclectic range of examples, from Streisand's THE MIRROR HAS TWO FACES (1996) to Martino's TORSO (1973)!

What's your top movie that features academic life on screen? Nine film studies academics have picked theirs (from Jurassic Park and The Birds to Wicked, Torso and Legally Blonde) - now tell us yours... blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducat...

With HE in crisis, should universities be looking for fighters to defend them in a dog-eat-dog world rather than the traditional academic leader? Perhaps, says LSE HE Blog Fellow Richard Watermeyer @rpwatermeyer.bsky.social blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducat...