Alan Kendall, the UEA geologist whose first-year course incorporated slides taken from Climate Audit, has defended the university's reputation in the comments on my post highlighting his scepticism.
I am entering the debate now because my university (UEA) is becoming subject to unnecessary scorn being branded disparingly as "a third-rate university" or the old tag repeated that it is the "University of easy access" in this and other blogs. This derision being made by those who are incensed by a small number of UEA employees, notably in CRU
UEA is a small university, yet is ranked 3rd in the Times Higher Student Experience Survey 2011; ranks in the Top World 150 universities, in the top 100 European universities and in the top 20 UK institutions, For its size it punches considerably above its weight. I am proud to have taught there and to be associated with it.
Those who are critical of the attempts by some to curtail the type of first-year teaching I used to give also miss a very important point. It was my School (ENV) that allowed me to teach the unashamedly anti-AGW lecture in the first place. More than that I was actively encouraged by the School's Dean at the time. If you wish to find a place where academic freedom showed itself, then you couldn't do better than to quote my case in UEA, a university that to some is a den of malfeasance and thought control. I am, of course, not condoning the actions and mind set of some of my colleagues, but neither have I criticized them - and I don't intend to start now.
IIRC Paul Dennis has also spoken highly of the support he received from the authorities in the School of Environment.
No public sector body is completely monolithic, it seems.