Author Archive for jenna

Shi Jinghuan to Join as Plenary Speaker for WUF

Please welcome Dr. Shi Jinghuan as a plenary speaker for the 2011 World Universities Forum

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SHI JINGHUAN

Dr. Shi Jinghuan is a professor and the Executive Dean of the Institute of Education, Tsinghua University. She also works as the Chairperson of Beijing Association of Women Professors and is a member of the 10th and 11th Beijing Municipal Political Council.

Dr. Shi Jinghuan has worked as a professor, the Deputy Department Chair and the Director of Research Institute of Education and Cultural History in Beijing Normal University for quite a number of years. She worked as a Fulbright professor in the University of Maryland at College Park, US in 1996 and as a specially Appointed Professor at the Center for Research and Development of Higher Education at Hokkaido University in Japan in 2006. She currently serves as an oversea Auditor, Australian Universities Quality Agency (AUQA). She has broad academic publications in higher education, international and comparative education and history of education.

Dr. Shi Jinghuan has a rich experience in working with international organizations. She worked as the consultants for the projects of the World Bank, the UNDP, the UNESCO and the UNICEF.

For more information and additional speakers please visit our website.

New Speaker for 2011 World Universities Forum

We are pleased to announce that Tapio Varis will be joining us as a plenary speaker for the World Universities Forum:

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TAPIO VARIS

Professor of Professional Education, with particular reference to global learning environments at the University of Tampere, Finland, Research Centre for Vocational Education, and UNESCO Chair in global e-Learning with applications to multiple domains. Principal research associate of UNESCO-UNEVOC. Governing Board Member of UNESCO-IITE. Acting President of Global University System (GUS). Former Rector of the University for Peace in Costa Rica. Expert on media and digital literacy to the European Union. Communication and Media Scholar at the University of Helsinki and the University of Art and Design in Helsinki. and the University of Lapland, Finland, Published over 200 scientific contributions. Visiting Professor and Lecturer in many countries in Europe, North and South America, and other regions of the world.

For more information and additional speakers please visit our website.

Scholars Test Web Alternative to Peer Review

peer1-articlelargeBy Patricia Cohen, in The New York Times

For professors, publishing in elite journals is an unavoidable part of university life. The grueling process of subjecting work to the up-or-down judgment of credentialed scholarly peers has been a cornerstone of academic culture since at least the mid-20th century.

Now some humanities scholars have begun to challenge the monopoly that peer review has on admission to career-making journals and, as a consequence, to the charmed circle of tenured academe. They argue that in an era of digital media there is a better way to assess the quality of work.

To read more…

Credit Where It’s Overdue

dr-david-mackintosh-m2By Rebecca Attwood, in Times Higher Education

It is a familiar lament: teaching excellence is doomed never to be rewarded as handsomely as research success - if at all. But some institutions are determined to tackle the pedagogical deficit. Rebecca Attwood reports.

We are proud of our reputation for teaching quality,” says David Mackintosh, deputy vice-chancellor of Kingston University.

“This is our primary focus as an education institution, so we are committed to recognising and rewarding excellent teaching, as well as research.”

But in doing so, he believes the university faces a challenge: finding fair and equitable criteria with which to assess top-quality teaching.

To read more…

Global: US Lead Slips in World’s Top 100 Universities

By David Jobbins and Karen MacGregor, in University World News

American universities continued to lead the latest Academic Ranking of World Universities, but US dominance of the global top 100 list compiled by China’s Shanghai Jiao Tong University slipped this year, to 54 institutions against 67 in 2009. Harvard clinched the top slot, as it has since the ranking was first published in 2003.

The University of California, Berkeley, leapfrogged Stanford into second place, while MIT pipped Cambridge into fourth place, leaving the UK university - one of only two non-US universities in the top 10 - in fifth place. Next came California Institute of Technology and Princeton, Columbia and Chicago. Oxford retained its 10th place for the fifth year in a row.

To read more…

Tigers Burning Bright

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From Simon Marginson and Philip Altbach, in Times Higher Education

Asian higher education is on the rise in a success story that is shaking up the global order. Simon Marginson explains the importance of the Confucian model to the region’s progress, while Philip Altbach discusses the systemic problems that could limit its advances

Confucian higher education is a new kind of system; an alternative global template. In some respects, the drivers of the Confucian model differ from higher education in mainland Western Europe, the UK and the US, where the modern university was incubated.

Statements about “the rise of Asia” are misleading. Asia is larger and more heterogeneous than Europe. In some nations, higher education is stagnant. In others, it is gaining ground. And the 40 per cent of Asia situated in the “Confucian zone” is moving into the stratosphere.

To read more…

Brussels Cash Comes at Terrible Price

From Yorick Wilks, in Times Higher Education

As cash-strapped UK science increasingly looks to Europe for funding, Yorick Wilks warns of a rotten framework of red tape, intellectual corruption and cronyism driven by bureaucrats in pursuit of personal agendas

A squeeze on UK research council funds is likely, which is something that is certain to make European Commission funds look more attractive to British academics. The time was, say some Russell Group academics, that they never bothered to apply for Commission grants, pointing to their markedly lower prestige in research assessment exercise ratings and the onerous paperwork involved. But you hear less of that talk these days, especially as the Commission’s Seventh Framework Programme for Research (FP7) funds are vast and show no signs of being cut during the ongoing financial crisis.

To read more…

Center on Edcation and the Workforce - Projections of Jobs and Education Requirements Through 2018

occsgraph_1From Anthony P. Carnevale, Nicole Smith, Jeff Strohl, Center on Education and the Workforce

“America is slowly coming out of the Recession of 2007 - only to find itself on a collision course with the future: not enough Americans are completing college… By 2018, we will need 22 million new workers with college degrees - but will fall short of that number by at least 3 million postsecondary degrees… At a times when every job is precious, this shortfall will mean lost economic opportunity for millions of American workers.” - Help Wanted, Executive Summary

The report presents a new approach that answers some critical questions about the emerging economy, including:

  • When will the jobs come back?
  • Where will the jobs be? Which states? Which industries? Which occupations?
  • What postsecondary certificates and degrees will be required?
  • Will the education system be able to keep up?
  • How much will it cost to fund the postsecondary education America needs?

For more…

Measured, and Found Wanting More

marginsonprofileBy Phil Baty, in Times Higher Education

International comparisons of universities still have their detractors, but the appetite for them continues to grow. Phil Baty traces their roots and looks at how they are increasing in number and quality, while Ellen Hazelkorn considers their impact and value

Marginson believes that rankings are “changing history, not just in higher education, but in all the social, economic, cultural and governmental sectors affected by higher education. In other words, the ranking systems - and the single worldwide higher education sector they embody and create - will change almost every sphere of human activity.”

So, anyone who thinks that university rankings are a bit of fun - an inherently shallow service to student consumers good only for selling newspapers - may need to think again. It is not only students, parents and university marketing staff who are taking them seriously.

The rise of global rankings has transformed higher education for ever,” says Simon Marginson, professor of higher education at the University of Melbourne.

For Marginson, rankings are “creating one single worldwide research-university sector, which provides the basis for a one-world knowledge system and, ultimately, a single world culture - in which diversity will continue to abound, but held within one container”.

To read more…

New Speakers Announced for 2011 World Universities Forum

We are pleased to welcome Professors Anthony B. L. Cheung and Xu Xiaozhou as Plenary Speakers at the 2011 World Universities Forum.

Anthony B.L. Cheung

anthonycheungProfessor Anthony B. L. Cheung, GBS, JP is the President of The Hong Kong Institute of Education, Chair Professor of Public Administration, and Director of the Centre for Governance and Citizenship.

Professor Cheung received his PhD degree in Government from The London School of Economics and Political Science, UK. He has written extensively on privatization, civil service and public sector reforms, government and politics in Hong Kong and China, and Asian administrative reforms, having published 11 authored/edited books, 100 referred book chapters and journal articles, and presented over 150 conference papers and prestigious lectures/talks.

Professor Cheung is a Non-Official Member of the Executive Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, and also sits on several statutory and advisory bodies including: the Consumer Council (as chairman), the Housing Authority (as chairman of the Subsidized Housing Committee), Hong Kong Mortgage Corporation (member of Board of Directors), and the Greater Pearl River Delta Business Council (as member).

Xu Xiaozhou

xuxiaozhouXU XIAOZHOU is Dean and Professor of College of Education, Zhejiang University. He holds the UNESCO Chair in Entrepreneurship Education at Zhejiang University. He is also Director of the Institute of Innovation Education and Entrepreneurship, the National Innovative Research Base of “Innovation Management and Sustainable Competitiveness.” He served as Senior Research Fellow at Institute of Eastern Asia Education, Korea in 2006. In 2008, he was bestowed title of honorary professor by the University of Hong Kong. His research focuses on Comparative Education, Education Policy, Higher Education, and Educational Innovation and Entrepreneurship Education. In recent years, he as the editor-in-chief edits a range of influential series which cover “Entrepreneurship Education Research Series” (4 books, Zhejiang Education Press, 2010), “Education in China Series”(5 books in English, Zhejiang University Press & Homas & Sekey Books Press, 2009), “Education in China Since the past 60 Years” (4 books Zhejiang University Press. 2009) and “Changes in Higher Education Policy Series” (6 books, co-edited with Xu Hui, Zhejiang Education Press, 2007). His other important monographs include “Idea and Reality in Higher Education” (China Ocean University Press, 2009), ”Autonomy and Restriction: Comparative Studies on Policies of Universities” (Zhejiang Education Press, 2007), ”Excellence and Efficiency: Studies on Prior Development Strategies of University”(Zhejiang Education Press, 2007), “Modern Korean Higher Education”(Zhejiang University Press, 2007), “Educational innovation: Perspectives of internationalization” (co-edited with Roberto Giannatelli, Zhejiang Universtiy Press, 2006) and “Studies in the Recent Reforms of Higher Education Structure in the Europe and the United States” (Neimenggu University Press, 1997).

Please keep visiting http://www.UniversitiesForum.com for more updates and all of our conference news.

Super-Campus Booster

By Paul Benneworth in, Times Higher Education

France is using governance reform and investment to push its universities up the league tables. Will it work? asks Paul Benneworth

In his new book A Chance for European Universities, Jo Ritzen, president of Maastricht University, sums up French institutions, along with those of Spain, Germany and Italy, as the mediocre face of the European academy. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, too, ticked off France for its sluggish higher education reforms in its Economic Survey of France 2009.

Even France is not immune to a preoccupation with its performance in international higher education league tables. And in the latest Times Higher Education World University Rankings, three of the four French institutions in the top 200 are not even universities, but grandes écoles, highly selective institutions that receive more than a quarter of science funding but educate less than one in 20 French graduates.

To read more…

New 2011 WUF Plenary Speaker

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We are pleased to announce the first of many plenary speakers for the 2011 World Universities Forum.

Dr S. Gopinathan is Professorial Fellow at the Policy & Leadership Studies (PLS), Curriculum, Teaching & Learning (CTL) at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University. He served as the Dean of the School of Education (Mar 1994 till June 2000) and was the former Dean of Foundations Programme (July 2000 till June 2003) and Head, CRPP (May 2008 till Feb 2009). In this role he oversaw the development and implementation of the newly launched BA/BSc (Education) programme. He is a founder member of the Educational Research Association of Singapore and serves on the International Advisory Board of the Asia Pacific Journal of Education, and co-edits the Routledge Critical Studies in Asian Education.

To follow updates on plenary speakers or to visit the conference website, please click here.

INDIA: New Performance and Promotion System

by Suchitra Behal, in University World News

Career advancement prospects in Indian universities became more difficult last week with the University Grants Commission adopting a performance-based points system. From now on, lecturers will be graded annually on their performance and will be eligible for promotions based on their teaching, research and publication quality - not on seniority.

This is a move away from the earlier seniority-based promotions most universities relied on. The commission’s plans met with stiff resistance by many unions in the last two years but have finally been accepted by the Ministry of Human Resource Development, with the agreement of almost all the lecturers’ representative bodies.

To read more…

Global Rankings: Thousands Respond to THE Survey

By David Jobbins, in University World News

The opinions of more than 13,000 academics will be used to build a picture of the standard of teaching and research in the world’s universities for the 2010 Times Higher Education World University Ranking.

Despite an increased sample size, the findings will account for 20% of final scores, compared with 40% under the methodology used from 2004 to 2009.

Meanwhile its main rival, QS, is introducing a rating system to better reflect the diversity of institutions by measuring their broader missions.

To read more…

The Emergence of the National University and the Role of the Federal Government

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By Linda Katehi, in The Huffington Post

Around the same time my parents’ generation was dreaming that higher education was in their children’s future, the California Legislature adopted the Master Plan for Higher Education, setting priorities for the University of California, California State University and community college systems. The Master Plan reflected California’s commitment to higher education as a public good. Recently, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger held a roundtable in Sacramento to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the California Master Plan for Higher Education — a plan that, even as we celebrate it today, is clearly at risk.

To read more…

US: Research Universities at Risk, Warns Chancellor

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From University World News

US research universities are under threat from the recession and social changes, Linda Katehi, Chancellor of the University of California, Davis, told scientists at a recent American Association for the Advancement of Science policy forum.

Katehi said the two factors were combining to undermine universities. State support for universities was shrinking; in California, for example, state funding for the University of California was half what it was 25 years ago in real terms.

The result was big increases in tuition fees and these could go higher still, making university education unaffordable to many people.

To read more…

Waiting for Recovery

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.

To read more…

Asia: Hong Kong and Japan Top Rankings

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.

To read more…

Global Student Mobility in the Asia Pacific

9781443819084Global 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.

To read more…

New Book from Simon Marginson: Plenary Speaker at the 2010 World Universities Forum

Int_Student_Security_fullcover_02International 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.

For more information…

Global: Universities and Sustainability

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.

To read more…

Loss of Philosophy at Middlesex Raises Fears for Humanities

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.

To read more…

Global: Universities Must Be Citadels Not Silos

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.

To read more…

Redesigned Newsletter: Launched Today

Today the World Universities Forum Newsletter will be re-launched - marking the start of a new approach to connecting with and reaching out to our Universities Community. The Universities Newsletter will be sent out on a monthly basis and will contain important community news, conference updates, and publication information.

It is the hope of Common Ground Publishing that this newsletter will provide you with a more positive experience connecting with the Universities Community.

If you are not currently a subscriber but would like to receive future newsletter emails, please go to ontheuniversity.com and click on “Sign Up: Our Newsletter” in the upper right-hand corner.

If you have inquiries, concerns, or general comments, please feel free to contact the newsletter team at support@ontheuniversity.com

Fourth Annual World Universities Forum

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Location and Date

The 2011 World Universities Forum will be held at the Hong Kong Institute of Education in Hong Kong from January 14-16. For more information, please visit http://www.UniversitiesForum.com

Call for Papers

If you intend to present a paper at the conference, your participation begins with submission of a paper proposal. For information on proposals, presentation types, and other options please follow this link. To submit a proposal, please click here. If your proposal is accepted, you will then need to register for the conference.

Registration

Those who submit paper proposals should register following the acceptance of the proposal.  Conference delegates who do not intend to present may register at any time. For registration options, or to register for the 2010 World Universities Forum, see: http://ontheuniversity.com/conference-2010/register/.

Themes

Theme 1: In the Interest of the Academy: Perspectives on the Nature, Purpose and Working of the University

Theme 2: Academic Interests: Setting Intellectual and Practical Agendas

For more information on our overall themes, please click here.

US: Boost Graduate Ratio to 60%

From Geoff Maslen, in University World News

A private US foundation has proposed increasing the proportion of Americans with “high-quality degrees and credentials” to 60% of the population within 15 years. President and CEO of the Indianopolis-based Lumina Foundation, Jamie Merisotis, told a conference in Miami the goal was to boost the proportion of higher-education qualified Americans from the current 40% to 60% by 2025.

Speaking during a panel discussion at the Clinton Global Initiative University, Merisotis said Lumina was working on increasing completion rates via its funding commitments to college preparation, success and productivity.

To read more…

At Top University, a Fight for Pakistan’s Future

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by Sabrina Tavernise, in The New York Times

LAHORE, Pakistan — The professor was working in his office here on the campus of Pakistan’s largest university this month when members of an Islamic student group battered open the door, beat him with metal rods and bashed him over the head with a giant flower pot.

Iftikhar Baloch, an environmental science professor, had expelled members of the group for violent behavior. The retribution left him bloodied and nearly unconscious, and it united his fellow professors, who protested with a nearly three-week strike that ended Monday.

To read more…

US: Impact of Background on Post-College Performance

From Sarah King Head, in University World News

Students likely to benefit most from a university education are not those from socially advantaged backgrounds. Instead the opposite appears to be true, according to a report in the American Sociological Review.

A study by Dr Jennie E Brand of the University of California at Los Angeles and Dr Yu Xie of the University of Michigan suggests students from socially disadvantaged backgrounds, who completed university, changed their socioeconomic status in a more profound way than did those for whom higher education was culturally inevitable.

The authors based their research around a cost-benefit analysis of the long-term outcomes of students from the 1960s to the present day. They derived their data from two sources: the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 and the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study 1957.

To read more…

Obama Signs Higher-Education Measure into Law

By William Branigin, in The Washington Post

President Obama signed into law Tuesday a package of revisions to his new health-care overhaul that includes a measure aimed at making higher education more affordable.

The provision ends what Obama called a long-standing “sweetheart deal” for banks in federally guaranteed student loans.

In a speech and signing ceremony at the Alexandria campus of Northern Virginia Community College, Obama said the health-care reform legislation and the revisions represent “two major victories … that will improve the lives of our people for generations to come.”

To read more…

The Tenure Tracts

tenuretracts_calmagFrom Cathleen McCarthy in Cal Alumni Association

Academics try to sift truth from subterfuge in the blogosphere.

Online, J. Bradford DeLong is, first and foremost, a liberal muckraker. His blog thrives when there is plenty of right-wing muck. Subtlety is not DeLong’s style, one reason other bloggers love to riff on his posts. As GOP resistance to Obama’s bills heated up, DeLong found his voice again. Last August found him authoring a series of posts on Republican subterfuge, including “Why the American Right Lies So Much” and in case we missed the point, “Republicans. Lying All the Time. About Everything. Because the Press Won’t Call Them on It.”

To read more…

Global: Three Nations Tops in Collaboration

20100326124228117_2From Yojana Sharma in University World News

With more than three million students studying outside their own countries, and rising, universities and governments are keen to know what kind of environment increases the inflow and outflow of students, and how countries compare in encouraging collaboration overseas.

A new index launched at the Going Global conference attempts to quantify how open to different ways of international collaboration a country’s higher education system is.

Developed by the British Council with the Economist Intelligence Unit, the index tracked policies in 11 countries to quantify international collaboration, overseas branch campuses, joint academic programmes, publications and patents, academic and student mobility, visa policies, quality, access and recognition of foreign degrees.

To read more…

A Land Without Google?

_tmp_articling-import-20100224094209991741_4631012a-i10From Jane Qiu, in Nature News

A survey reveals how Chinese scientists could be affected by the stand-off between their government and the search-engine giant.

“Research without Google would be like life without electricity,” says Xiong Zhenqin, an ecologist at Nanjing Agricultural University in Jiangsu province.

Xiong is not alone in thinking that Google is indispensable. Its search engine is a powerful tool for helping scientists to find academic papers and details of conferences or identify potential collaborators. And for most researchers around the world, access to Google — and all its related products, including the literature search Google Scholar — is as unfettered as their access to heat or light.

To read more…

US: Decline of a Once-great System

From Sarah King Head in University World News

It may be that higher education is in greater demand during economic downturns but - after years of insidious cutbacks - American public institutions are struggling to maintain their traditionally high standards. Indeed, the Great Recession seems poised to wreak lasting damage on one of the most successful models of higher education in the world.

Higher Education Budgets and the Global Recession, a report published by the University of California at Berkeley’s Center for Studies in Higher Education last month, outlines the discouraging picture. The report’s author and a senior research fellow, John Aubrey Douglass, gives a global overview and explores - in particular - the situation in the union’s wealthiest and most populous state, California.

The report notes that, while other OECD nations are actually using the recession as an excuse to improve the quality of output in the post-secondary sector and to promote innovation, the US is witnessing uncoordinated cuts in funding at the state level.

To read more…

Europe: A Decade of Reform

From University World News

The Trends 2010 report by the European University Association reviews implementation of the Bologna process and its impact over the past 10 years on higher education across 46 countries in Europe, in the context of broader reform processes affecting European higher education.

The report is based on questionnaire responses from 821 universities, 27 national university associations, and site visits to 16 countries. Its launch in Vienna last Thursday marked the official launch of the European Higher Education Area and the end of the first phase of the Bologna reform process that began in 1999.

The report is the sixth in the Trends series and considers new degree structures, credit transfer and accumulation systems, and the use of the diploma supplement since the outset. It also assesses progress towards the underlying aims of the Bologna process, such as improving quality of teaching, graduate employability and mobility of students and staff.

As well, the report considers some of the key challenges for policymakers as they look ahead to the next decade of higher education cooperation.

To read more…

Global: First Shots Fired in Ranking War

From David Jobbins, in University World News

The parting of the ways between Times Higher Education and QS, its international league table number-cruncher for the past seven years, was bound to cause ripples when it was announced late last year. The two former partners are now vying with each other to capture hearts and minds for their diverging methodologies as they gear up for the 2010 rankings cycle.

QS, or Quacquarelli Symonds, the research and information specialists behind the QS World University Rankings, begins work this week on its academic and employer surveys for the 2010 rankings. It also continues a partnership with US News and World Report to reproduce the league tables alongside the magazine’s domestic rankings with the publication late last month of a mid-year update.

That there are now to be two rival northern hemisphere English-language rankings to spar with the Academic Ranking of World Universities compiled by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University will be bound to reinforce criticisms that international league tables favour universities in the European and North American mould and discriminate against institutions elsewhere, especially where academics tend to publish in languages other than English.

To read more…

Europe: Turing Science into Commerce

From University World News

Europe produces more research papers than the US or Japan but needs an influx of venture capital to turn inventions into commercial success, according to Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, EU commissioner for research, innovation and science.

The Euractiv.com newsletter says that as the EU’s newly- installed innovation commissioner, Geoghegan-Quinn listed venture capital among a series of bottlenecks to innovation in Europe when briefing journalists on her first day in the job.

Venture capital has been creeping up the agenda in recent months and was highlighted by a panel of business exports who reported on the state of Europe’s innovation infrastructure for the European Commission last year, reports Euractiv.com.

The European Investment Fund (EIF) provides venture capital and loan guarantees to small businesses and has stepped up its activity since the outbreak of the financial crisis. Geoghegan-Quinn cited the example of the MP3 standard for compressing audio files which was invented in Europe but commercialised in the US.

To read more…

EUROPE: Developing a Worldwide League Table

From University World News

The European Union plans to publish a worldwide ranking of universities next year that it hopes will rival existing global league tables. The aim is to boost the place of European universities in the Shanghai Jiao Tong and Times Higher Education ranking systems, both dominated by US institutions.

In the last Shanghai Jiao Tong ranking, the whole of continental Europe had only 23 universities in the top 100. Yet Europe has some 4,000 universities and colleges that enrol more than 19 million students and employ1.5 million staff.

The new European rankings are being developed following acceptance early last year of a tender from a German, Dutch, Belgian and French consortium called CHERPA, a European network of leading institutions in this field.

To read more…

China Spends as Uncle Sam Tightens the Purse Strings: Forum Reveals Key Divergence in Approaches to Academy Funding

From John Morgan in Times Higher Education

China and other Asian countries are responding to the global recession with massive public investment in higher education while Western nations cut university budgets, an international conference has heard.

Among the speeches at the World Universities Forum in Davos, Switzerland were two that highlighted contrasting government and public attitudes to higher education in China and the US.

Linda Katehi, chancellor of the University of California, Davis, looked at the future of the state’s publicly funded university system in the wake of a 20 per cent budget cut over the past year.

She warned that without increased federal and state investment, America’s public research universities faced the “shrunken, caste-bound future of the privatised university”.

David Strangway, who co-chaired the Task Force on Innovation and Environment for the China Council on International Co-operation on Environment and Development, presented a contrasting vision of higher education investment in China, particularly in the low-carbon economy.

To read more…

Indian Assault Response Decried

From Andrew Trounson and Christian Kerr in The Australian

Australia is in denial on racially motivated attacks against international students and has failed to take action to deal with the issue, an internationally respected Australian academic has told a major conference in Switzerland.

Melbourne University professor Simon Marginson, delivering a keynote address to the World Universities Forum in Davos, said the Australian government was trying to spin itself out of crisis following this month’s murder of Indian accountancy graduate Nitin Garg in a west Melbourne park. “The Australian government is in denial,” Professor Marginson told the high-powered meeting of academics. “Racist targeting is involved (in the attacks). Indian students do have a special problem. And there isn’t enough official and civil concern about international student security in Australia.”

Garg’s unsolved murder has sparked diplomatic, government and public protests in India, further weakened one of Australia’s most important education export markets and prompted a defensive response from Australia’s political leaders and Victoria Police.

To read more…

Professor Video: Visual, Audio, and Interactive Media Are Transforming the College Classroom

From Craig Lambert, in Harvard Magazine

1109_p34_01Near the University of Bologna—the world’s oldest, founded in 1088—is a medieval museum displaying carved memorial plaques that honor great professors of the past. “They all show the professor on the podium, with the students below,” says Thomas Forrest Kelly, Knafel professor of music. “Often the students are asleep, playing dice or cards, or fornicating.”

Much has changed since the Middle Ages, but one thing that persists is the lecture. The medieval university invented lecturing—the word comes from the Latin verb legere, to read—to cope with the scarcity of books: a lecturer would read the only available copy of a book to the gathering of students. “That was high technology in the thirteenth century,” says Kelly, “but not high technology for the twenty-first century!”

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EUROPE: Universities Still Lack Full Autonomy

From Alan Osborn, in University World News

European universities have less ability to manage their own affairs than is generally realised and less than is desirable, according to a new survey by the European University Association. The report covers 33 countries and finds that genuine autonomy is lacking in several critical sectors, above all in that of finance.

This could have worrying consequences for the future of many institutions. The EAU said that at a time when the overall levels of public funding in education were stagnating and universities were increasingly being asked to look for alternative funding sources, the lack of autonomy was a real threat for the sustainability of Europe’s universities.

The report noted that many governments, the university sector itself and the European Commission had recognised increased autonomy for universities would be a crucial step towards modernisation in the 21st century. In practice, however, “public authorities still play too central a role in the regulation of the higher education system and, in a large number of countries, still exert direct control”.

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