From Scott Jaschik, in Inside Higher Ed
Denver — State support for higher education tends to be cyclical — a fact that’s been comforting to many who study or teach at public colleges and universities that have been facing budget cuts these past two years.
But research presented here Monday at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association suggests that while you can still assume that what goes down will come up, you can’t assume it will happen any time soon. The research asserts that the time it takes states to restore deep cuts has grown longer in the last 20 years. Further, the research suggests that states that imposed large tuition increases, have centralized governing boards, or are located in the West may have to wait a particularly long time for cuts to be restored.
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By Yojana Sharma, in University World News
Universities in Hong Kong and Japan dominate the upper echelons of the QS Asian university rankings released last Thursday, with universities in Singapore and South Korea also making a strong showing in the top 20. But mainland China’s universities have not performed as well as expected in the regional comparison.
The 2010 Asian rankings drawn up by QS (Quacquarelli Symonds), which also issues annual world university rankings, show the most economically developed countries of Asia also have the region’s top universities.
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Global Student Mobility in the Asia Pacific: Mobility, Migration, Security and Wellbeing of International Students, edited by Peter Kell and Gillian Vogl
Over 2.7m students study in a country other than their own. Most of those students come from the Asia-Pacific region and undertake study in universities in the developed world. This trend is predicted to grow exponentially but features many dilemmas. In the post-9/11 global environment, international students experience hostility and harassment as well as ambivalence about their value to the academy.
Some live an uncertain life of poverty and alienation. Many also struggle to come to terms with living and studying in a foreign land where there are concerns about international students eroding academic standards, having poor English language proficiency and being unable to “integrate” and contribute to their new communities. But some also seek to make new homes in their host countries.
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International Student Security: By Simon Marginson, Chris Nyland, Erlenawati Sawir, and Helen Forbes-Mewett
More than three million students globally are on the move each year, crossing borders for their tertiary education. Many travel from Asia and Africa to English speaking countries, led by the United States, including the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand where students pay tuition fees at commercial rates and prop up an education export sector that has become lucrative for the provider nations. But the ‘no frills’ commercial form of tertiary education, designed to minimise costs and maximise revenues, leaves many international students inadequately protected and less than satisfied. International Student Security draws on a close study of international students in Australia, and exposes opportunity, difficulty, danger and courage on a massive scale in the global student market. It works through many unresolved issues confronting students and their families, including personal safety, language proficiency, finances, sub-standard housing, loneliness and racism.
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By Alison Moodie, in University World News
Universities are making sustainability a priority in their curricula. Food security, rapid urbanisation and climate change are just some of the complex issues that have hit societies across the world, making it imperative for universities to tackle these problems.
Dalhousie University in Canada and Stellenbosch in South Africa are among the many higher education institutions across the planet to have recognised the importance of sustainability education and added it to their curricula.
“In this century, an understanding of sustainability is critical for all of us in leadership roles,” said Professor Deborah Buszard, associate director of research and outreach at the College of Sustainability at Dalhousie University.
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by John Morgan, in Times Higher Education
Fears have been raised for the future of the humanities in post-1992 universities after Middlesex University announced it is to close its philosophy programmes.
The university’s move to phase out all teaching in philosophy at undergraduate and postgraduate level led to international condemnation from some of the best-known figures in the field.
Academics fear closure will follow for the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy, which was Middlesex’s highest-rated department in the 2008 research assessment exercise. A Middlesex spokesman said no decision had been made about the centre’s future.
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From Karen MacGregor and Munyaradzi Makoni, in University World News
Universities must be “citadels not silos”, defending communities around them rather than being inward-looking, if they are to actively advance global development goals, the Association of Commonwealth Universities conference heard in Cape Town last week.
Vice-chancellors were urged to support individuals in universities who wanted to work on the Millennium Development Goals - the theme of the association’s conference of executive heads held from 25-27 April - for instance by providing concrete assurances that this would not wreck their academic careers.
A conflicting picture of universities and the MDGs emerged from the conference.
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