Monthly Archive for May, 2011

Exploding the ivory tower myth

Published on May 31, 2011 in News. 0 Comments

By Professor Alan Hughes, University of Cambridge

When people think about how academia links with external organisations they often think in terms of commercialisation of research. But the results of a large-scale survey of academics across all disciplines in every UK university, and a parallel survey of all sectors of UK business, tell a very different story.

The surveys were carried out by the Centre for Business Research (CBR) at Cambridge Judge Business School as part of a research initiative funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and the respective higher education funding councils of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The results were finalised last year and have now been interrogated in greater detail, and supported by a set of detailed case studies, for the arts and humanities – a group of disciplines conventionally given little emphasis in relation to discussions of the socio-economic impact of University activity.

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Plenary Speaker Barbara M. Kehm Joins 2012 World Universities Forum

Published on May 31, 2011 in Conference. 0 Comments

We are pleased to welcome Dr. Barbara M. Kehm to the 2012 World Universities Forum as one of our plenary speakers.

Barbara M. Kehm is a professor of higher education research and head of the International Centre for Higher Education Research (INCHER) at the University of Kassel (Germany). One of her tasks has been the creation of an international research oriented Master Programme “Higher Education Research and Development” which is running since 2004.

She has worked as a post-doc researcher at the University of Kassel from 1990 until 1996. From 1996 onwards she was active as a senior researcher at the Institute of Higher Education Research of the University of Halle-Wittenberg and was its research coordinator from 2001 onwards. In 2003 she became professor at Kassel University and managing director of INCHER in 2004. She was a member of the EAIR Executive Board and the German Society for Higher Education Research. She is currently the Secretary of the Consortium of Higher Education Researchers (CHER), a European based but global association of researchers in the field of higher education. In addition she is a member of the editorial board of four international higher education journals. She has carried out several large-scale projects for international organisations such as UNESCO, the OECD, the European Commission, and the Council of Europe. Her publications include more than 20 monographs and more than 200 journal articles and book chapters. Among her publications in English, she has edited the volumes: Reforming University Governance. Changing Conditions for Research in Four European Countries (with U. Lanzendorf) (2006), Looking Back to Look Forward. Analyses of Higher Education Research after the Turn of the Millennium (2007), The European Higher Education Area: Perspectives on a Moving Target (with J. Huisman and B. Stensaker) (2009), and University Rankings, Diversity and the New Landscape of Higher Education (with B. Stensaker) (2009).

For more information about our plenary speakers, please visit our website.

Announcing Plenary Speaker António Nóvoa for the 2012 World Universities Forum

Published on May 31, 2011 in Conference and Newsletter. 0 Comments

We are pleased to welcome António Nóvoa to the 2012 World Universities Forum as one of our plenary speakers.

António Nóvoa is Rector of the University of Lisbon. He earned a Ph. D. in Education at Geneva University (Switzerland) and a Ph. D. in History at Sorbonne University (Paris IV). Main advisor for Education of the Portuguese President of the Republic (1996-1998), he has been the President of the International Standing Conference for the History of Education (2000-2003). António Nóvoa has been Visiting Scholar or Visiting Professor at several universities (Geneva, Paris V, Wisconsin, Oxford, Columbia-New York, São Paulo, etc.). He is the author of 150 titles (books and articles) published in 12 countries, mainly in the fields of History of Education, Comparative Education and Teacher Education.

For more information on our plenary speakers, please visit our website.

College Student Debt Grows. Is It Worth It?

Published on May 18, 2011 in News. 0 Comments

By NPR Staff, NPR

Part of a series on young people and financial literacy

The amount of money Americans owe on student loans recently exceeded the nation’s credit card debt. That may lead many to ask: Is it smart to borrow a lot of money to go to college? Student financial aid expert Mark Kantrowitz says that college debt is OK — if you’re careful.

“It’s smart if it’s enabling you to invest in your future,” Kantrowitz tells NPR’s Steve Inskeep. “But if you borrow more than your expected starting salary after you graduate, you’re going to struggle to pay your loans.”

As an example, Kantrowitz says if you’re going to borrow $10,000 a year for four years, you should hope that the field you’ve chosen has a starting salary of at least $40,000. If you are going to be borrowing more than that, he suggests looking for a less expensive school.

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Faulty Towers: The Crisis in Higher Education

Published on May 14, 2011 in News and Newsletter. 0 Comments

By William Deresiewicz, The Nation

A few years ago, when I was still teaching at Yale, I was approached by a student who was interested in going to graduate school. She had her eye on Columbia; did I know someone there she could talk with? I did, an old professor of mine. But when I wrote to arrange the introduction, he refused to even meet with her. “I won’t talk to students about graduate school anymore,” he explained. “Going to grad school’s a suicide mission.”

The policy may be extreme, but the feeling is universal. Most professors I know are willing to talk with students about pursuing a PhD, but their advice comes down to three words: don’t do it. (William Pannapacker, writing in the Chronicle of Higher Education as Thomas Benton, has been making this argument for years. See “The Big Lie About the ‘Life of the Mind,’” among other essays.) My own advice was never that categorical. Go if you feel that your happiness depends on it—it can be a great experience in many ways—but be aware of what you’re in for. You’re going to be in school for at least seven years, probably more like nine, and there’s a very good chance that you won’t get a job at the end of it.

At Yale, we were overjoyed if half our graduating students found positions. That’s right—half. Imagine running a medical school on that basis. As Christopher Newfield points out in Unmaking the Public University (2008), that’s the kind of unemployment rate you’d expect to find among inner-city high school dropouts. And this was before the financial collapse. In the past three years, the market has been a bloodbath: often only a handful of jobs in a given field, sometimes fewer, and as always, hundreds of people competing for each one.

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India: Science and Research Spending to Double

Published on May 9, 2011 in News and Newsletter. 0 Comments

By Alya Mishra, University World News

The Indian government has said it will double its spending on science and technology research and development over the next five years, in a bid to keep up with other major developing countries such as China and Brazil.

The government will also provide more scholarships to arrest a decline in student interest in pure sciences, applied sciences and research, increasing the budget for scholarships and post-doctoral fellowships to more than five times its current levels.

The Department of Science and Technology will spend Rs150 billion (US$340 million), amounting to 0.6% of country’s gross domestic product in the next five years.

The move is aimed at attracting the best students into science and technology research and making India a hub for innovation. The government also wants its scientists to find solutions to India’s problems.

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Photo Courtesy of Pharmacy Colleges in India

Race to the Top: Why tuition fees are soaring and what to do about it

Published on May 2, 2011 in News and Newsletter. 0 Comments

From The Economist

THE unseemly scramble by most English universities to raise annual tuition fees to the maximum level permitted by the state, £9,000 ($14,500) from September 2012, is a headache for the coalition government. Not only does it make university education in England as expensive as in America, a burden that will in many cases be borne by the taxpayer, but it also seems to rule out creating a genuine market in higher education, with institutions competing on price. Ministers had thought that universities charging the top whack would be exceptional. Alas, when they submitted their final plans on April 19th, it was clear that most had aimed high.

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