From University World News, at its Leaders Conference in Madrid, the Talloires Network explored whether universities can and should be an active partner in political transition; the growing use of English as the lingua franca of higher education is placing huge pressures on non-English academics while those who succeed in the mainstream may "perish locally"; and not much good news from the man who possibly has the best snapshot of international academic rankings in his head — but regardless of its usefulness, is it at all possible to produce a good ranking? A review of For the University: Democracy and the Future of the Institution by Thomas Docherty. Are professors cash cows or intellectual leaders? Ideas in the ascendant: In an online age, truth is more unbundled than ever — that makes higher education more important than ever. Ann Blair on her book Too Much to Know: Managing Scholarly Information before the Modern Age. From THE, at a Unesco forum, Matthew Reisz hears about the hunger for libraries, corporate creep, and what should and should not be archived on the net; with scholars exploring digital platforms to make their work more available, a look at possible replacements for the monograph; and a review of Degrees of Inequality: Culture, Class, and Gender in American Higher Education by Ann Mullen. A review of The Faculty Lounges: and Other Reasons Why You Won’t Get the College Education You Paid For by Naomi Schaefer Riley (and more). Faculty immobility in the new economy: Imagine the star system if no one could go anywhere. Clothes make the humanities professor: Yes, teachers can dress like slobs — but that doesn't mean they should. Very few universities have had realistic "action figures" made of their faculties and staff — one exception is the University of the Ozarks in Arkansas.
