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As stated in your leader ¡°A measure of humanity¡± (Opinion, 19?October): ¡°The US higher education sector is the most diverse in the world.¡± Nevertheless, in contrast to the situation in the UK, there is a clear-cut and consistent transparency across the sector within the country regarding the hierarchy of titles and ranks among staff.

Some standardisation in titles in the UK¡¯s higher education institutions would avoid the ambiguities and inconsistencies currently present, with their inherent risks of confusing or misleading people.

In particular, it is an absurdity that a holder of the title senior lecturer in one of the newer (post?92) universities is the equivalent of a lecturer in any of the older universities; a number of UK universities including, for example, Exeter, Nottingham and Warwick, have begun in recent years to award the titles ¡°associate professor¡± and ¡°assistant professor¡± to those who are not of full professorial standing, whereas other universities such as Loughborough have not; and vice-chancellors, in addition to their ever-growing remuneration, are increasingly using multiple titles (with one or other of ¡°president¡±, ¡°provost¡±, ¡°chief executive¡±, ¡°warden¡± or ¡°principal¡± being added to ¡°vice-chancellor¡±) in many institutions.

It appears that grade inflation is not only evident in under-graduate examination results.

Richard Wilson
Emeritus professor?
Loughborough University

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