Tag Archives: University

Jul 06 2026
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Daily Post, Interior

Bibliotheca Almae Materis

Monday 6th July 2026, 2.20pm (day 5,429)

“Alma Mater” doesn’t seem to get a translation out of Latin to English, it just comes up the same on Google. “The place where one went to university” is the windier but more colloquial version. It’s been a while since I have been back to the campus of the University of Leeds, which guided yr. humble blogger through two, or was it three, degrees (astonishing!) and then five years of employment (staggering!) between 1993 and 2005. And, yes, I put in my time in the rooms behind the doors to the right of this shot. I like the red lines to top right, which contrast the No Smoking sign and is the only reason I might get away with the latter blemish.

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Jul 12 2025
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Daily Post, Family Member, Portrait

Joe prepares to graduate

Friday 11th July 2025, 1.45pm (day 5,069)

Joe, graduation photo queue, 11/7/25

The photo of Joe (with Clare) on 9/9/2021 was the last one of him taken before he headed north, to Dundee, and his studies at the University of Abertay. 1,391 days later, here he is at the other end — his graduation ceremony. Yes, of course I am a proud parent, how could it be otherwise? We cannot know what his future will bring, but he has made it to this particular transitional point relatively unscathed, at least. Congratulations to him and everyone else from Abertay (it’s a small college and so got through the entirety of its graduations in two ceremonies today: at Manchester there are three ceremonies a day for two whole weeks).

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Jun 21 2025
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Daily Post, Interior

A change of campus

Friday 20th June 2025, 1.45pm (day 5,048)

York uni campus, 20/6/25

I am still occasionally invited to offer words of wisdom in the professional settings of others. Which is nice, because no one ever listens to you at your own place of work. (Perhaps that’s just me, though.) And one gets the chance to check out classic 1960s brutalist architecture — in this case, the Heslington campus of the University of York — on another pleasant sunny day. There were worse ways to end the working week.

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Mar 18 2025
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Daily Post, Interior

Atrium, University of Gibraltar

Monday 17th March 2025, 1.35pm (day 4,953)

Uni of Gib, 17/3/25

The University of Gibraltar is why I am here, indirectly anyway. It is one of Europe’s newest, founded in 2016 and built into a converted old barracks. It’s also one of Europe’s smallest: what you see here is a considerable proportion of the whole. Something about it reminds me of the atrium where Heywood Floyd and the Russian scientists have a conversation in 2001: A Space Odyssey. It’s the red-and-white theme that does it. And no, there didn’t seem to be any students around. They’re all ‘on placement’, apparently.

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Mar 01 2025
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Daily Post, Interior

Study space

Friday 28th February 2025, 9.10am (day 4,936)

Not many students are seen on campus at just after 9am on a Friday, then again, nor am I, all that often. She seems engrossed enough in something, anyway. I hope I managed to keep my class entertained too.

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Sep 18 2024
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Daily Post, Urban scene

Humboldt University

Wednesday 18th September 2024, 5.55pm (day 4,773)

Amongst various (acknowledged) perks of my job I get to visit some world-renowned seats of learning, and the Humboldt University of Berlin is definitely one of the elite. Scholars who have worked here include Einstein, Schopenhauer, Marx, Weber, Hegel, Planck and von Braun, and if you haven’t heard of at least three of those, you need to do some more reading.

There is something terribly autumnal about this shot, even if it was 25ºC and extremely pleasant in Berlin today. But here we are, mid-to-late September, and I suppose it’s an inevitability.

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Jun 10 2024
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Daily Post, Friend, Portrait

Carl, and acolytes

Sunday 9th June 2024, 11.45am (day 4,672)

Carl Bereiter, 9/6/24

Professor Carl Bereiter, Emeritus of the University of Toronto, is someone I’ve been lucky enough to, if not exactly work with (at 94 years of age, Carl doesn’t exactly turn up to the office very much any more) but certainly meet, talk with, hear from. He is genuinely one of the pioneers of the academic field of computer-supported collaborative learning, in which I have occasionally been known to dabble. And please, don’t ask which one of the people in this picture is him.

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Mar 01 2024
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Daily Post, Friend, Portrait

David Shaffer

Thursday 29th February 2024, 10.10am (day 4,571)

David Shaffer, 29/2/24

I’m not saying this has never happened before — see the note — but today I can say that along with about twenty-five other people, I took a class with someone who is genuinely the world-leading authority in their specific field. Like, the ultimate teacher. I said to a colleague the other day that I was coming to this session on epistemic network analysis (it’s a way of depicting the patterns of conversation in groups, the way they talk about things) with some ’eminent American guy’ and she said, immediately, ‘Oh, you mean David Shaffer?’. Even Clare — who, while being a highly intelligent woman, does not move in the same strictly academic circles as I do — had heard of him. And Prof Shaffer turned out to be a friendly, agreeable chap, the two hours of my time very well spent.

Note: I think there are three other appearances of truly globally reputable teachers on here: Etienne Wenger, Michelle Brown and Jürgen Habermas.

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Dec 14 2022
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Daily Post, Friend, Portrait

The Last Class: photography ceremony

Tuesday 13th December 2022, 10.45am (day 4,128)

ETC last class, 13/12/22

It’s the last class of the semester, and the done thing among students now is “get a photo of themselves with the lecturer” at this point. I acknowledge this but it did require leaving at least 20 minutes at the end of the session so the ceremony could take place: what you see here is the queue after at least half of them had already had their time. I was feeling like a cardboard cut-out of myself by this point, although not an unhappy one. Here I said, ‘right, I’m taking a photo of all you lot while you wait to take a photo of me’… and this is the result.

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Jun 23 2022
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Art and architecture, Daily Post

Senate House, more intimately

Wednesday 22nd June 2022, 9.25am (day 3,954)

Senate House, 22/6/22

Senate House makes its second appearance on the blog, after debuting in July 2015. This shot is something of a repeat but I had to get it back on here this week as it’s the venue for my course (we are somwhere up the wall to the right). I do like this building, first for itself and its clean lines — and it’s good inside, as well — but also for the fact (repeated from seven years ago) that it’s the model for Ministry of Truth in Nineteen Eighty-Four. And you can quite readily picture it in that role.

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