The week in higher education – 20 June 2024

In the midst of a funding crisis, vice-chancellors across England have called for an increase in tuition fees – which means they won’t be thrilled with the results of a recent poll. According to the consultancy Public First, which asked voters of all parties to rank policy priorities for the incoming UK government, even a small increase in tuition fees proved to be less popular than the Conservatives’ much-derided plan to bring back national service. “To the relief of vice-chancellors, Labour has in recent weeks left the door open to future fee increases,” said Jess Lister, an associate director of Public First. “But as our polling today shows, this will be a phenomenally unpopular decision with voters.” If voters would rather potentially go to war than see tuition fees rise, even “phenomenally unpopular” seems an understatement.

Question: what do you get if you mix Donald Trump, a shark, a battery-powered boat and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology? Answer: a perplexing Las Vegas campaign speech that baffles the internet. The former president, apropos of very little, recounted a supposed conversation he had with a boat manufacturer, who he claimed had complained of being ordered to make electric boats that were, because of their batteries, too heavy to float (as The Washington Post pointed out, there are plenty of electric boats that have no issue with floating). “So I said, ‘Let me ask you a question,’” Mr Trump said. “And he said, ‘Nobody ever asks this question,’ and it must be because of MIT, my relationship to MIT. Very smart.” (Mr Trump did not attend MIT; he had an uncle who was a professor at the university.) The question in question: would you rather, if the boat sank near a shark, “stay on the top of the boat and get electrocuted” or jump away from the boat and into the shark’s jaws? Mr Trump chose electrocution, if you’re wondering, having a well-documented fear of sharks (but as the Post noted, the risk of electrocution from a submerged electric boat is “extremely low”).

There aren’t an awful lot of UK university officials who find themselves depicted in a major motion picture – but for Richard Taylor, former deputy registrar at the University of Leicester, it wasn’t quite a Hollywood fantasy. The 2022 film The Lost King, starring Oscar nominee Sally Hawkins and produced and co-written by Steve Coogan, who also appears in the film, depicts the discovery of King Richard III’s remains under a Leicester car park; Ms Hawkins plays Philippa Langley, an amateur historian who led the dig. Alleging that the film shows him treating Ms Langley in an “abominable way” by taking credit for her work, Mr Taylor launched legal action against Mr Coogan, production company Baby Cow and distributor Pathé. Last week, a high court judge ruled that the film’s depiction of Mr Taylor could be viewed as defamatory; the case will now proceed to a full trial.

The Lost King lawsuit isn’t the only car park-related controversy facing a UK university: plans to raise parking fees at the University of Plymouth by 440 per cent sparked outcry among staff and students. If the proposal goes ahead, parking fees at the John Bull Building and Derriford Research Facility will rise in August from £12.50 to £67.50 per month, with a further increase to £85 by August 2025. One signatory to a petition protesting the decision described the price increase as “unthinkably greedy”, saying it “shows a lack of understanding or care toward the members of staff who cannot afford a £70 per month subscription just to park at work”.

Student use of artificial intelligence is a somewhat touchy subject, with academics reporting a sharp increase in the number of ChatGPT-produced essays being submitted. But one student in Turkey took a different approach, Reuters reported: while sitting a university entrance exam, they employed a tiny camera “disguised as a shirt button” that was “linked to artificial intelligence software via a router hidden in the sole of the person’s shoe”. After scanning a question, the set-up fed the student the answer through an earpiece. The plan didn’t work out: the exam-sitter was “spotted behaving in a suspicious way” and was arrested and sent to jail to await trial, with another person suspected of assisting the student also detained. But the technology, it appears, was sound: police tested the system by scanning an exam question, and found the AI generated the correct answer.