Campus Talks by Times Higher Education

For this episode of the Campus podcast, we talk to Eunice Simmons, who has been vice-chancellor of the University of Chester since 2020, about what works when it comes to widening participation in higher education and how to ensure students are successful in their studies and beyond. She describes how initiatives such as Citizen Student and the Race Equality Challenge Group embed the values of soc...

Effective teaching sits at the heart of higher education’s mission to advance learning and discovery. But what are the key components which make up top quality instruction? And how can these be achieved in different and often fast evolving educational contexts? It is this latter question which makes defining good teaching so difficult. So, for this week’s podcast we spoke to two academics who have...

What is an intelligent campus? How is technology blurring, or extending, the borders of the modern university? And how do you build belonging when your students could be spread across the globe? In this episode of the Campus podcast, we talk to two experts from leading US institutions – who were both speakers at Times Higher Education’s Digital Universities US 2024 event – about how technology is...

In this episode, we sit down with two panellists from Times Higher Education’s Digital Universities Asia 2024 event to talk to them in more detail about how their institutions have embraced advancing digital technologies in different ways – and brought their staff and students along for the ride. Julia Chen is director of the Educational Development Centre at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University a...

This episode of the Campus podcast comes at a time when many UK universities are changing leaders. A total of 30 institutions have either had a new leader start or have begun the process of finding a replacement in 2024, according to a Times Higher Education analysis last month. So, what are the skills and experience that underpin good leadership and how do you prepare for a senior role? Our inter...

With frozen tuition fees, falling international student enrolment and the very real possibility of a university going bankrupt, the UK’s new Labour government has inherited a sector in crisis. The need for fast action is apparent, but where should priorities lie? Two higher education leaders share their perspectives on what the sector needs in the short and long term.  For this episode of the Camp...

One way to future-proof students in our globalised world is to improve their cross-cultural communication skills. With students and academics more mobile than ever, the ability to reach across divides – be they language, culture, religion, economic or location – will be in demand whatever the workplace. These skills offer a path to belonging, innovating, being effective and thriving in higher educ...

Will the UK general election offer a ray of hope for the beleaguered university sector? On this episode of the Times Higher Education podcast, two policy experts give their take on opportunities that 4 July may bring and how a new UK parliament might tackle hot topics such as international students and research funding. Our questions include what is on higher education’s wish list for the new parl...

For this episode of the Times Higher Education podcast, we talk to award-winning author, cultural historian and literary critic Alexandra Harris about the research and writing practices behind her new book, The Rising Down: Lives in a Sussex Landscape (Faber, 2024). Alexandra is a professorial fellow in English at the University of Birmingham in the UK. Her books include Romantic Moderns: English...

Katie Normington, vice-chancellor and CEO of De Montfort University, has proved to be adept at both leading by example and change management. Not only did she join the Leicester institution during Covid amid the longest lockdown in the UK, but in the three years she has led the institution she has overseen large-scale curriculum reform. De Montfort has moved most of its undergraduate and postgradu...

Imagine a learning environment where an AI professor fields infinite student questions, where business students practise difficult conversations with an avatar that models an array of personas and reactions, where automated feedback is not static but dynamic and individualised. Artificial intelligence and XR tools are changing education and preparing students to live and work in an unpredictable w...

For this episode of the Times Higher Education podcast, we talk with an academic, practitioner and policy commentator who uses phrases such as “burning platform” to describe the state of universities’ digital landscape. Mark Thompson is a professor of digital economy in the research group Initiative for the Digital Economy (Index) at the University of Exeter, and his work focuses on the complexity...

What difference does human connection make to student success? Does it matter if students come to in-person lectures? And what if students turn to AI for help with academic tasks rather than asking libraries or someone in student support? This episode of the podcast takes on these questions, ones that have driven headlines on Times Higher Education, to examine the topics of student attendance in l...

In this episode of the Times Higher Education podcast, we talk to two experts – one in the US and one in the UK – about open access, the global movement that aims to make research outputs available online immediately and without charge or restrictions. Heather Joseph has been an advocate for knowledge sharing and the open access movement since its earliest days. Based in Washington DC, she has bee...

In this episode we discuss a rare creature: the female higher education leader.  Indeed, according to the American Council on Education’s most recent American College President Study, women remain outnumbered by men in the college presidency by a ratio of 2:1, with about 33 per cent of presidencies held by women. Women in higher education were also more likely to work a part-time or reduced schedu...

In this bonus episode of the THE podcast, we continue the theme of universities’ role in fostering civic engagement with an interview with renowned human rights scholar and award-winning author Kathryn Sikkink. Sikkink is the Ryan Family professor of human rights policy at Harvard Kennedy School, as well as faculty co-chair of the Harvard Votes Challenge, a non-partisan initiative that promotes st...

In 2024, more people than ever in history will be going to the polls to vote in elections in more than 80 countries, including the US and the UK. As pillars of democratic societies, universities and colleges are integral to the exercise of choosing our public representatives. In today’s episode we speak to two political scientists about voting habits, including among Generation Z, and how universi...

James Purnell has been the president and vice-chancellor of the University of the Arts London since 2021. He joined UAL after a career that included key positions at the BBC (as director of strategy and digital, and director of audio and education) and as a research fellow on the Institute of Public Policy Research’s media project. He has served as special adviser on the knowledge economy to UK pr...

From employers to policy makers, universities and their students, everyone agrees that alternative credentials are a good thing for the economy and for expanding access to higher education. But it’s one thing to think it’s a good idea and another to make it happen. The truth is demand for microcredentials remains low among students, the business plans are patchy and higher education providers have...

January is a month of change and new beginnings and our guest for this episode speaks about his experience of both, in terms of his career, the relationship between the arts and sciences and the state of US science.  Microbiologist Mike Ibba joins us to discuss Chapman University's decision to move its philosophy department into the Schmid College of Science and Technology and why he wants trainin...

In the lead-up to the Times Higher Education Awards 2023, for this episode, we talk to two winners from last year, both of whom share their advice, insights and best practice for engaging the public. King’s College London and health science company Zoe won the award for Outstanding Marketing/Communications Team for the Covid Symptom Study app. Tanya Wood, talks about the agile methods the team use...

  Can spending time in natural environments support students’ well-being? The is the question that an interdisciplinary team of researchers and educators at Trinity University in San Antonio Texas wanted to answer.  Despite research showing that spending time outside does support students’ mental health, the team struggled to get students to actually spend time outdoors. So they developed an innov...

Academic freedom and free speech are the defining values of higher education institutions. But sticking to those principles becomes very difficult when polarising political events divide communities on and off campus. In this episode, free speech champion and the chancellor at Vanderbilt University, Daniel Diermeier, discusses how academic leaders should respond to the Israel-Hamas war. Civil disc...

Find out how engaging non-academics in research can uncover and disperse new knowledge and ways of thinking that could help shape solutions to seemingly intractable problems

For this episode of the podcast we handed the mic over to the Campus network to get their top tips on how to be a good mentor and mentee. These relationships can make or break academic careers so getting them right is crucial. Our contributors offer suggestions on how to choose a mentor or supervisor, how to give advice, how to do reverse mentoring and how to lay the ground rules so that everyone...