The week in higher education – 20 January 2022

There has been some speculation that the wearing of face coverings in public areas may become more common worldwide after the Covid-19 pandemic. But according to research by psychologists at a UK university, their benefits may not only be tied to reducing transmission from airborne diseases. The study, by researchers at Cardiff University, found that men and women were judged to be more attractive when wearing face coverings, especially disposable-type blue medical masks, The Guardian reported. According to Michael Lewis, from Cardiff’s School of Psychology, the results suggest masks – which may have been seen as signifying that someone was ill before the pandemic – could now be signalling reassurance given their association with professions such as nursing. The study participants were female psychology undergraduates at Cardiff.

If university staff have concerns about meeting students in person with the Omicron variant running riot, maybe one way to deal with them is to upload an expletive-laden rant to YouTube so you get suspended from duty. That is what happened to 74-year-old historian Barry Mehler of Ferris State University in the US, who appeared on the video-streaming site – initially wearing an astronaut-style helmet with air filters that he said he planned to wear in class – saying, among other things, “You’re just vectors of disease to me, and I don’t want to be anywhere near you. So keep your fucking distance,” Inside Higher Ed reported. Part of the video appeared to be adapted from a scene in a television show to make a point to his students about soliloquies and plagiarism. He also claimed that no “cocksucker of an administrator is going to tell me how to teach my classes because I’m a fucking tenured professor. So if you want to go complain to your dean, fuck you. Go ahead. I’m retiring at the end of this year, and I couldn’t give a flying fuck any longer.” The university said Professor Mehler had “been placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of an investigation”.

A British retailer has changed the name on the packaging of some sweets it sells after an academic in disability studies said use of the word “midget” could be considered a form of hate speech. Erin Pritchard, a lecturer at Liverpool Hope University, has approached supermarkets and sweet manufacturers about the use of the word in treats called Midget Gems, the BBC reported. Dr Pritchard, who has achondroplasia, a condition that stunts growth, argues that the word had roots in Victorian freak shows and was a term whose “origin automatically dehumanises people like me”. Marks & Spencer said following suggestions from its staff “and the insights shared by Dr Erin Pritchard” it had changed the name to “Mini Gems”. Tesco also said it was reviewing its sweet packaging.

A US university has fired its president after investigating allegations that he engaged in a sexual relationship with an employee. According to the University of Michigan board of regents, an investigation into Mark Schlissel revealed “that your interactions with the subordinate were inconsistent with promoting the dignity and reputation” of the institution. The regents released more than 100 pages of email exchanges between Professor Schlissel and the employee, including a message where he tells her “you can give me a private briefing” after a reference to a “President’s Suite briefing” at a college sports game. His removal comes less than two years after that of Michigan provost, Martin Philbert, also because of sexual misconduct allegations.

Long-running attempts to simplify the French university sector have hit a major bump in the road after a judicial decision to strip the University of Paris of its name just two years after its recreation. The Council of State, France’s supreme court, ruled that the institution, formed in 2019 from the merger of the universities of Paris-Descartes and Paris-Diderot, must change its legal name. The two universities, formerly known as Paris V and VII, can both trace their lineage back to the 12th-century University of Paris, but share that claim with the University of Paris-Panthéon-Assas, which brought the case against them. Since 2010, French governments have pushed for the merging of universities to strengthen their position internationally, but one group of research universities said the decision “takes us back 15 years”.