to object to all this "Russell Group" malarkey?

[tispity]

Where has this term appeared from in the last few years and why does it confer prestige upon it's alumni? From where i'm standing, London University has always been a mixed bag really: Imperial (excellent), LSE and Kings (generally good, excellent for a few subjects) and all the others (I know not how many even). If I were to generalise based on what I saw when I used to sneak into their libraries during the college holidays, hardworking, working/ lower middle-class, suburban kids of average intelligence for the most part.

I am not being arrogant but (as a sibling of one and friend of many of it's alumni) it was always just a good old, reliable, solid red brick institution. Why the need to suddenly rebrand itself, in order to stand out from the group?

I'm a professor of forumology at oxbrdgeshire.

well,indeed!mn interactions doesn't demand graduates but plenty have PhD in i-told-you-so and then of course there are those who demand citations for every damn point

But research credentials do trickle down to undergraduate teaching and learning.

Is there really a problem with asking someone to substantiate a point they've made? Seems to me people amke all sorts of statements on here. Is it wrong to want to know if there's any evidence for what they're saying? I've seen you pull someone up for saying 'proven' in a non-mathematical context...

I do think that education and what is appropriate in education is a very important topic on MN.

I will have to advise my children on what choices they should make in order to pursue certain careers, or to keep their options as useful as possible if they do not know which career they want to pursue.

There are lots of careers and educational options I don't know about and advice on them from MN is invaluable to me as there are lots of people on here who are very experienced in different areas.

To pretend that the whole thing doesn't matter and that you can go to any university and do any subject and the choice is really inconsequential is absurd and misleading.

Of course it is snobbery when someone goes on about having gone to Oxford just for the sake of saying so. But someone pointing out the benefits of going to Oxford for a young person wanting to pursue a specific career is useful to many of us who may have no knowledge of that career or the routes into it.

Really Mevmjsunp? Any evidence for that?

Seriously - some of my lecturers were awfully eminent, but shit teachers. Really, really bad.

Er, lowenergy, if that were the case then I'm fairly sure we'd have met, given that I'm the head of Message Board studies?

Milly R - well said!

Money and the consquent facilities, tfm.

Passion.

What kind of evidence will you find satisfactory, btw? If I know what you are looking for, I will try to track it down.

Oh yes they do mvemsjump, and good research unis do tend to have good teaching as well, but the two things are not always done by the same people!

There are some academics who are very good in their area and big 'names' but are such prima donnas and so self-obsessed that they have no time for teaching.

these threads can become bitty brag and gag

and of course universities are not all equal,no problem with global discussion about inequalities etc. but somehow a crowing brag always creeps in.add to that a flavour of if the oiks tried harder they could go to oxbridge/rg/scumbag uni

God knows. It was following on from my dig at scottishmummy

Passion doesn't necessarily translate into good teaching though (although I agree it's an important factor). But I also think you don't necessarily need to be good at research to be passionate about your subject. In fact, that's the mistake I made when I decided to try my hand at research...

And I'm not sure about the facilities.Aprt fromlibraries, where to be honest, I did most of my learning.

well dont be so eager to be a smart arse.it will bite you on the arse,as you saw

The comment on "But research credentials do trickle down to undergraduate teaching and learning." from mvemjsunp, is ime somewhat optimistic view on things.

As am academic at a RG university, I have been asked to teach subjects I haven't covered myself since being an undgrad (more than 15, less than 20 years ago). Some people are teaching subjects they have never themselves studied. There is commonly an attitude of "so long as your a page in the text book ahead of the undergrads". It's quite depressing really.

fairycake, shall we liaise with the head of trollism this week? 'sucks pipe and shines elbow patches'

Actually, lowenergy, I happen to know that the Head of Trollism is at the annual SockPuppetry Conference this week, so we'll have to re-schedule!

But fairycake, I shall be lecturing under a different username by then!

Professor emeritus of AhTalkshite and the toady lecturers always made me smile at uni

The head of the iamricherthanyow department was struck off my xmas card list this year.

Goodness, I've just found out I went to a Russell Group uni. you learn something new on mn every day. I had heard of it but was just ignoring it really until I saw this thread and decided to find out what it was.

The way Russell Group is used to denote 'university suitable for middle class kids who won't come into contact with too many chavs' makes me snigger a bit. It's like that old Morecambe and Wise sketch about 'I look down on him'.

In my day, you had Oxford and Cambridge for top snob value, then Bristol and Durham next, with the redbricks at the bottom of the pile and polys not even in the competition at all. (Oh, and Exeter if you were upper-middle but too thick to get into Oxbridge, Bristol or Durham.)

Now the redbricks have managed to become snobby about the 'newer' universities - even though some of those have a longer academic pedigree, actually.

was it two ronnies?

or peter cook?

The Frost Report. John Cleese, Ronnie Barker, Ronnie Corbett (in descending order of class )

oops yes, you are right!