So while the talk in the UK is about ending tutorials for students, Stanford University, one of the educators of the elite out on the progressive American west coast is going to begin working with tutorials.

Those of us who have already benefitted from a tutorial-style education have no doubt that Stanford is doing the right thing.

The Stanford Graduate School of Business is to revamp its MBA programme completely to give a more personalised education to each of the 380 students who graduate from the school every year. The new style programme will include a series of tutorials and a menu of new programmes to ensure that the most accomplished students are stretched further than in the current “one size fits all” system.

Later in the article:

The personalised tutorial approach, he believes, means students “will develop habits of thinking and learning that they take to their jobs...The theory is, this programme will get them into a different way of thinking”, he says.

Although the article does not make clear whether it is just mentoring, or mentoring and teaching that will take place on a personalized basis, many of us from Oxford will agree that, as far as educational standards are concerned, Stanford is taking a big step in the right direction.

Hopefully, observers in Oxford will take note.

In a white paper, the vice-chancellor, John Hood, confirmed that the council, which runs the university, would have a majority of outside members, including those with strong corporate interests, for the first time in Oxford's 800-year history. The move, part of a drive to modernise Oxford's governance, will be put before Congregation, the dons' ancient parliament, in the autumn.

Get it all here:
http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/news/story/0,,1788595,00.html

Although I am in favour of centralizing power in some areas, this, most certainly is not one. Diversity of admissions is one of the things that ensures student diversity. Centralizing the admissions process, to my mind, can only reduce that diversity.

Write to Sir Tim Lankester and make your views known: tim.lankester@ccc.ox.ac.uk

Click here to see the working party report: Working Party report.

Or read the Education Guardian report, below.

His first three prescriptions for a solid, Harvard or Yale size foundation?

Start early, put real resources into the effort, use the alumni base. Hard? Not really - once you've got everybody on the right track.

We recently met Jon Dellandrea. He's a Candian dynamo.

Read it all in the extended entry below.

“The new plans retain the key dangerous idea of taking authority away from academics and giving it to a chief executive vice-chancellor and a committee with a heavy weighting of outsiders,” said Gillian Evans, a Cambridge professor who is heavily involved with the governance debate at Oxford.

You can read the rest of the article below. I have two points to make.

Firstly, there is no way that you can be an effective academic while you are also responsible for running the University. The overwhelming majority of decisions that Hood proposes to have taken by the University executive are unlikely to have any impact on academic feedom whatsoever.

Secondly, if the Dons want the University to remain world class, there is no choice but to centralize decisionmaking.

My personal suspicion is that many of the people resisting Hood's proposals know that they are mediocre academics that would not survive when subjected to closer scrutiny. They prefer to hide behind the banner of academic freedom.

http://www.oxfordstudent.com/mt2005wk0/news/dons_set_for_fresh_showdown_with_vice-chancellor

STEALING THE OXFORD NAME: If you thought that calling this website "OxBlog" represented an audacious borrowing of our alma mater's good name, then who knows what you'll think of the three alums who started their own "Oxonian Society" without getting permission from the University.

You can check it out here:
http://oxblog.blogspot.com/2005_06_12_oxblog_archive.html#111864276909414991

According to New York Sun journalist Mechling, we at OAANY are a "frumpy stepsister" to the Oxonian Society.

Later in the article, she writes of an Oxonian Society event that she covered,

"Nobody in the room seemed to hold an Oxford degree" and, she overheard snippets of conversation included: "I'm an Oxford alum wannabe"

The OAANY did not provide any comment to the journalist.

My own opinion, already expressed to the New York Observer, is that for an individual to call themselves an "Oxonian" when they have not actually studied at Oxford University is a form of social mis-representation.

When an organization does it, there is a legal term to describe it - its called, "passing off". Here is the entry from the Oxford Dictionary Law on passing off:

passing off Conducting one's business in such a way as to mislead the public into thinking that one's goods or services are those of another business. The commonest form of passing off is marketing goods with a design, packaging, or trade name that is very similar to that of someone else's goods. It is not necessary to prove an intention to deceive: innocent passing off is actionable.

"passing off" A Dictionary of Law. Ed. Elizabeth A. Martin. Oxford University Press, 2002. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. Guy Spier. 29 September 2005

We look forward to reading and publishing your comments.

Here is a link to the article at the New York Sun website:
http://www.nysun.com/article/20651

Alternatively, you can read the full article below.

http://education.guardian.co.uk/universityfunding/story/0,14337,1575006,00.html

Actually, the headline is, as best I can tell, a misrepresentation of what is written in the report - which identifies the need to come up withleast £100 million to as much as £200 million.

The report also only touches on the idea that resources may be allocated away from the less successful departments and towards the more successful departments.

If this is, indeed what John Hood intends, I believe that it is the right approach.

To read the report itself, click here:
Oxford's 5 year corporate plan

I recently had a long conversation with a fellow BNC grad about funding for Oxford.

We both agreed that the real transformation that needs to take place is in governance. People are just not going to open their wallets untill they can see and feel that the fiduciary responsibility is in place.

As far as Oxford is concerned, it seems to me that we have a long way to go before we get that.

Step two is that we need intelligent giving. I read with interest (see below) this article by Heather McDonald in City Journal about how smart philanthropists in the US are getting around the shenanigans that academics get up to.

It makes for eye - opening reading. Enjoy.

http://www.city-journal.org/html/15_3_college_follies.html

You can link to it here:

http://www.cherwell.org/?id=3297

or see the article below:

Link here (or story in the extended entry):

http://joongangdaily.joins.com/200506/07/200506072151049739900091009101.html

In April, Oxford University in England announced that it might be forced to end its Korean studies program in June 2007 because of a lack of funding. That has caused alarm about the possible cancellation of Korean studies at one of the world's top universities. In 1992, Oxford began its program, with two professors teaching Korean history and language, with funding from the Korea Foundation, a non-profit organization affiliated with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade that oversees Korean studies programs abroad. The foundation has pledged to contribute until 2007, but after that it will be up to the university to fund the program itself or rely on private contributions. The university says it requires an $11 million endowment to maintain the Korean studies program, with three professorships rather than the current two, but without the means at the moment the school may be unable to continue the program. Kwon In-hyuk, president of the Korea Foundation, says that although Oxford said it would be difficult to maintain the Korean studies program without further funding, the university has not made definite plans to cancel the program. "Oxford, with its name value, is very important for us," says Mr. Kwon, a former Korean ambassador to France. "We will endeavor to perpetuate the Korean studies program there." He did say, however, that securing financial support for the program was badly needed

This is a photograph from one of the Oxford University Korea Society events - taken from its website.

To link to the society, click here:
http://users.ox.ac.uk/~koreasoc/

Csaba is concerned that the University is very far from doing what it needs to do to ensure that it attracts the very best and brightest students. He has one particular case of someone he knows who dealt with the University politics department and did not get the right kind of response.

Looking past the letter's strident tone, what comes through is the writer's deep concern for Oxford. I am wondering if there are many high quality graduate students out there who might have gone to Oxford, but did not, because they did not get a sufficiently good, "customer service" experience.

The letter is reproduced in the extended entry, or click on the link to download a pdf.

Download file

Although the article leaves some important facts about OAANY out, on the whole, it is reasonably truthful and fair.

Read it all below in the extended entry.

The article has now been archived at the New York observer. You can access the archive here:

http://www.observer.com/p

You can also pick up the article from Jessica Bruder's personal website:

http://www.limelike.com/clips/oxford.html

It was also picked up by Gawker Media - see this link:
http://www.gawker.com/news/media/tina-brown/how-to-receive-a-free-speech-from-tina-brown-105954.php