THURSDAY 25 APRIL 2024

Good morning,

Google Translate and DuoLingo have long been every tourist’s best friend when going abroad and trying to order at a restaurant. But our long read today explores whether they, along with artificial intelligence, have been contributing to the demise of modern languages at university. Elsewhere, with more than 50 UK universities now making redundancies, we ask whether they are cutting too far, too fast; we report on the Australian university offering extra pay for Aboriginal staff; and we consider whether the slide in South-east Asian currencies will hit global study abroad flows. 

– Patrick Jack, reporter
patrick.jack@timeshighereducation.com

LOST IN AUTO-TRANSLATION 

The data is clear in anglophone countries - demand for learning foreign languages at university level has been plummeting for years. But experts caution that this might just be a concern for English-speaking countries, that the problem really starts in schools, and that it might simply reflect a wider trend of declining interest in all social sciences and humanities. Added to those old problems, enters a new one - the rise of high-quality automated translation. In our long read, Richard Brecht, professor emeritus in the School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures at the University of Maryland, warns that there is “no question that AI, Google Translate, ChatGPT…are making the need for language in the eyes of learners and their parents less critical”. But he is also optimistic that if the sector can learn to embrace technology, it can get itself out of a “rut”.

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MUST-READS ON THE TODAY

Thrifty fifty: The number of UK universities cutting jobs has passed 50, with leaders claiming drastic action is required to prevent institutions going under, but some are worried that the speed and scale of the restructuring has gone too far with no way back even if financial conditions improve.

Background bonus: Aboriginal staff at an Australian university will be paid for the extra work that comes with their indigenous heritage, in what is being hailed as a first for the sector.

Currency slide: Weakening exchange rates across South-east Asia could hit international student demand, experts have warned, as currencies in the region reach the lowest levels seen in years.

Warm Wellcome: Researchers applying for Wellcome Trust grants will have to explain how they plan to reduce energy consumption, reuse equipment and recycle waste products, the biomedical research funder has announced.

Line of fire: The speaker of the US House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, has jumped into the nationwide debate over campus free speech, calling for the resignation of the Columbia University president, Baroness Shafik, because she has not done enough to stop pro-Palestinian protests.

Proper pronouncing: University staff should be given training in how to pronounce students’ names to make learners from diverse backgrounds feel more welcome in the classroom, according to researchers.

National enigma: The Alan Turing Institute is being hindered in its goal of being the UK’s national centre for data science and artificial intelligence because of its governance structure and other issues, according to a new report.

Short change: The US National Institutes of Health is raising the minimum salary for its main category of postdoctoral researchers by 8 per cent, its largest single-year jump, but still below the level recommended in an agency analysis

Troubled waters: International collaborations are “bloody complicated at the moment” amid rising geopolitical tensions, the THE Europe Universities Summit has heard.

OPINION OF THE DAY

In recent years, the relationship between administrators and faculty has taken on elements of class war, writes Nicholas Dirks, president of the New York Academy of Sciences, who argues that the sector must rethink its intellectual mission in terms that transcend Manichaean critiques of the neoliberal university. Dirks, the former chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley, says the division can partly be explained by envy and the conviction that administrators take power away from faculty. “The suspicion and distrust between faculty and administrators has now been theorised as an inevitable consequence of the rise of the neoliberal university,” he writes, but he adds that there are compelling reasons why a rethink is needed.

DAILY RESOURCES FOR FACULTY AND STAFF

Academic, practitioner and policy commentator Mark Thompson shares his concern that UK higher education is drifting from its true north of research, teaching and impact in the wake of complex digital change and the prisoner’s dilemma of whole-sector transformation. Meanwhile, university marketing teams can increase their visibility and attract a diverse applicant pool by using contemporary strategies, writes Archana Nayak. Plus, when designing online courses and teaching remotely, teachers need to select the framework that supports learning goals. Three academics break online learning techniques into their key parts.

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