Title restraint

I do not share Richard M. S. Wilson’s enthusiasm for standardisation of terminology across all UK universities (“Title scramble”, Letters, 9 January). But if we are to be so blessed, perhaps a good place to start would be a sector-wide ban on the conferment of professorial title upon those (including, I fear, vice-chancellors) who neither teach nor research.

Geoffrey Alderman
Professor of history and politics
University of Buckingham