Good news from Soton

THERE ARE many people working at Southampton Institute and elsewhere who believe that your recent coverage of the institute has been unduly one-sided. The front-page article (THES, March 21) only served to reinforce this perception.

Having written about the internal investigation regarding the anonymous publication, your reporter added four paragraphs on a completely separate matter, the Nottingham Trent University validators' report on Alicante. What was striking was the fact that your reporter made no mention of a second report by the same NTU validators, written at the same time as the Alicante report, which was submitted to the NTU Academic Board, together with the Alicante report. This second report, concerned the franchise by Southampton Institute's law faculty of its BA (Hons) business and law degree to Griffith College, Dublin.

This franchise received high praise from the NTU validation team. In particular, the team concluded: "Nottingham Trent University Academic Board is recommended to congratulate both Southampton Institute and Griffith College on the development of a successful and robust collaborative partnership which exhibits good practice in many aspects."

I would expect a journal with the high reputation of the THES to take greater care to provide balance in its reporting of matters of this nature, and I wonder why your reporter thought it reasonable to refer only to the negative aspects and not mention the positive?

Jeremy Cooper Dean of law faculty Southampton Institute