- A business student is hoping to clear debts of $31,000 (拢18,700) by selling advertising on his graduation mortar board, Fox News reported on 21 January. Alex Benda, who will graduate from the University of Michigan-Flint this spring, is offering 100 one-inch squares on the top of his 10in x 10in hat to advertisers at $300 each, with promised publicity coming in the form of close-up media shots of the unusual headgear. Mr Benda said he had already accrued $1,615 in donations during the first few days of his money-making scheme. The 22-year-old鈥檚 use of a mortar board is not entirely novel, as he explained that graduates often wrote things such as 鈥淗ire me鈥 or 鈥淭hanks, Mom and Dad鈥 on them. 鈥淚 was joking, 鈥榮omeone should sell ad space on there鈥 and it dawned on me, that鈥檚 what I should do,鈥 he said.
- The new head of England鈥檚 university funding body must be hoping her organisation鈥檚 fortunes will change soon. Not only is the Higher Education Funding Council for England, where Madeleine Atkins took over as chief executive this month, facing the funding it distributes being cut even further, it also had terrible luck when its staff appeared on the BBC Two quiz show Eggheads. Having battled gamely to a tiebreaker round, the Hefce team was stumped when asked to name the comedian whose Out Out tour sold out venues in 2011 (answer: Micky Flanagan). In contrast, the Eggheads (the quiz gurus that Hefce was challenging) were almost embarrassed to be asked one of the easiest questions of the show: which former bank boss was stripped of his knighthood in 2012? (answer: Fred 鈥渢he Shred鈥 Goodwin).
- A team of Finnish computer scientists is hoping to create a humour algorithm that will help computers to tell jokes, The Daily Telegraph reported on 22 January. Led by Hannu Toivonen at the University of Helsinki, researchers analysed why some autocorrect errors in predictive text messages were more amusing than others. In a paper called 鈥淟et Everything Turn Well in Your Wife: Generation of Adult Humour Using Lexical Constraints鈥, Professor Toivonen found the rogue autocorrect 鈥渕eet at the bum stop鈥 was considered more entertaining than the far-from-classic 鈥渏ust off from berk鈥orry, I mean work鈥. The work will be used to help make predictive texts funnier, though perhaps the research could be extended to help academia understand the questionable appeal of BBC One show Mrs Brown鈥檚 Boys.
- The University of Cambridge lavished almost 拢3 million on wine last year, the Daily Mail reported on 22 January. Figures obtained by student newspaper The Tab showed that the university鈥檚 31 colleges spent about 拢7,000 a day on wine in 2012-13, with King鈥檚 College spending almost 拢850 per undergraduate in the year 鈥 a sum branded 鈥渋mpressively ludicrous鈥 by a student officer. Cambridge鈥檚 expenditure compared with the 拢2.7 million poured into outreach schemes that year and 拢5.8 million on bursaries, was an 鈥渦nacceptable鈥 luxury when many college kitchen staff were not paid the living wage, students said. While many colleges served wine free of charge to fellows at High Table, several bursars said that much of it was used at conferences or resold to students.
- Two student protesters charged with assault and resisting arrest are each set to receive 拢20,000 in damages after a YouTube video revealed what a judge called 鈥渟hocking inconsistencies鈥 in police officers鈥 accounts of the events, the London Student reported on January. Former London School of Economics student Ashok Kumar was accused of twice pushing a police officer at a protest during a talk by David Willetts, the universities and science minister, at Soas, University of London in June 2011. Simon Behrman, a PhD student at Birkbeck, University of London, was also charged with assaulting an officer on the day. However, the cases against them were dropped this month after video footage showed no assault or obstruction had taken place. 鈥淲hat was astonishing was I was sitting in court and there were officers there ready to testify that I had done something when it was as clear as day from the video that I hadn鈥檛,鈥 said Mr Kumar, who is now a PhD student at the University of Oxford.
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