Archive for the 'Conference' Category

Announcing the Winner of the 2011 Award for Best Practice in Higher Education

We are very pleased to announce that the Centre for Advanced Inquiry in the Integrative Arts (CAiiA) – Planetary Collegium is the 2011 recipient of the World Universities Forum Award for Best Practice in Higher Education. Each year, the Award recognizes some of the most significant higher education practices, including curricula and research.

Founded and directed by Professor Roy Ascott, the CAiiA – Planetary Collegium is a PhD research program located primarily in the School of Art and Media at Plymouth University (UK), with nodes at the Nuova Accademia de Belli Arte, Milan and Hochschule fuer Gestaltung und Kunst, Zurich. The Collegium brings together a geographically and professionally diverse group of people, including artists, scientists, theorists, architects, and scholars, for doctoral and post-doctoral learning and research.   Meeting on-line, and face-to-face in research sessions, conferences and symposia, members of the CAiiA – Planetary Collegium focus on the intersection of emerging forms of art and architecture, new media, and technology, science and consciousness. This collaborative — and syncretic — approach, one nominator explained, “opens the exchange of ideas, where discovery, creativity and personal and professional development can flourish, with the support of the exceptional Planetary Collegium’s academic faculty.”

The Best Practice Award will be announced formally at this year’s World Universities Forum, which will be held at the University of the Aegean, Rhodes, Greece from 8-10 January 2012.  This marks the fifth year of the Forum, which was inaugurated in Davos, Switzerland in 2008 and was held subsequently in Mumbai, India (2009), Davos, Switzerland (2010) and Hong Kong (2011). The 2012 Forum will continue the discussion of the current role and future possibilities of the university. We are pleased that this discussion will include recognition of the CAiiA – Planetary Collegium, Plymouth University, and the inspiration it provides for reinventing the ways in which universities develop degree programs and conduct research.

Accommodations Still Available for World Universities Forum

Rooms are still available at Rhodes hotels with special rates for the World Universities Forum.

Space is going quickly so be sure to book soon!

Here are some of the conference hotels available:

Rodos Park Suites and Spa

“The Rodos Park Suites & Spa is located at the most beautiful spot of the town, surrounded by green parks and lush gardens, next to the Medieval Town of Rhodes. The unbeatable location, the spectacular view, the culinary excellence personalised service and the harmonious balance of well-being are only some of the features of Rodos Park Suites & Spa.  In the ultimate world of the new Wellness Spa senses you can discover the exceptional world of well-being and revitalization.”

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Rhodes Plaza Hotel

“The Best Western Plaza Hotel in Rhodes, is a 4 star hotel, located in one of the nicest areas of Rhodes or Rodos town. Close to all amenities and main attractions of the island, it is the ideal location for the holiday makers and the business visitors alike.

 

For more information on these hotels including booking information, please see our website.

World Universities Forum Welcomes Marianna Papastephanou as Plenary Speaker

We are pleased to welcome Dr. Marianna Papastephanou as one of our plenary speakers to the 2012 World Universities Forum.

Dr Marianna Papastephanou has studied and taught at the University of Cardiff, UK. She has also studied and researched in Berlin, Germany.  She is currently teaching Philosophy of Education in the Department of Education at the University of Cyprus. Her research interests include political philosophy, the ‘modern vs postmodern’ divide, utopia, the Frankfurt School and epistemological, linguistic and ethical issues in education (e.g. the Idea of the University, Education as Bildung, etc). She has written articles on the above topics, edited a collection of essays by Karl-Otto Apel (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998), and she is the author of: Educated Fear and Educated Hope (Rotterdam, Sense Publishers, 2009); and Eccentric Cosmopolitanism and a Globalized World (Boulder, Paradigm, 2012).

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

Now Accepting Nominations for 2011 Higher Education Awards

The World Universities Forum is accepting nominations for its Higher Education Awards. These three awards — for Best Press, Best Policy, and Best Practice — recognize the most significant higher education achievements of 2011. Award recipients will be invited to attend the 2012 World Universities Forum where they will receive their awards. Awardees will also be recognized in the WUF program, press releases, and other forms of publicity.

Best Press: The Best Press Award recognizes outstanding journalistic reporting in 2011 on higher education topics. Nominees may be higher education news stories from any form of media, and any media outlet, provided the intended audience of the reporting extends beyond the confines of narrow academic or policy specializations. The Award will be granted to the individual(s) instrumental to the creation of the news story.

Best Policy: The Best Policy Award recognizes the most significant higher education policies of 2011. Nominees may include innovative and/or far-reaching policies established on institutional, local, national or international levels. The Award will be granted to the individual(s), group(s), organization(s) or institution(s), etc. instrumental to the formulation of the selected policy.

Best Practice: The Best Practice Award recognizes the most significant higher education practices of 2011. Nominees may include, for example: innovative curricula, research projects, student services, etc. The Award will be granted to the individual(s), group(s), organization(s) or institution(s), etc. instrumental to the achievement of these practices.

To submit your nomination, please fill out the nomination form (note: nominations must be submitted by 18 NOVEMBER 2011).

To read more about previous winners, please see our website.

Announcing Plenary Speaker Ronald Barnett for 2012 World Universities Forum

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

Ronald Barnett is Emeritus Professor of Higher Education at the Institute of Education, University of London. He is a recognized authority on the conceptual and theoretical understanding of the university and higher education. His books, several of which have won prizes and have been translated into other languages, include The Idea of Higher Education, Higher Education: A Critical Business, Realizing the University in an age of supercomplexity, Beyond All Reason: Living with Ideology in the University, and A Will to Learn: Being a Student in an Age of Uncertainty (all published by McGraw-Hill/ Open University Press). His latest book is Being a University (Routledge – January 2011). Ronald Barnett has held senior positions at the Institute of Education, including that of Pro-Director for Longer Term Strategy and was also, for seven years, a Dean. He is a past Chair of the Society for Research into Higher Education, and has recently served as a Special Adviser to the House of Commons Select Committee Inquiry into Universities and Students. He is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and the Society for Research into Higher Education and is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Oxford and Visiting Professor at universities in China and Australia.  He also acts as a consultant, and has worked with most of the national organizations in the UK and many individual universities, including the University of the West Indies and the TATA University Institute of Social Sciences in India. He has been awarded a higher doctorate of the University of London, is an Academician of Social Sciences and was the recipient of the inaugural ‘Distinguished Researcher’ prize of the European Association for Institutional Research (EAIR).  He has been a keynote speaker in over 30 countries.

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

Announcing Plenary Speaker Fatma Gök for 2012 World Universities Forum

We are pleased to welcome Dr. Fatma Gök to the 2012 World Universities Forum as one of our plenary speakers.

Fatma Gök received her bachelor’s degree from the Department of Education Sciences at the University of Ankara and received her graduate education and PhD, in 1987, from Columbia University, USA. She works as a professor at the Department of Educational Sciences at Bogaziçi University. Her academic work focuses on education policy, social foundations of education, gender in education and comparative education. She has published on the right to education, discrimination in education, the relationship between social justice and education and neoliberal policies in education. She was part of the editorial collectives of the journal “Socialist Feminist Kaktüs,” between the years 1988-1992 and the feminist magazine “Pazartesi,” between 1999-2001. She acted as the coordinator of the Education Philosophy Working Group at the Democratic Education Congress of the Teacher’s Union in 1998 and of the Working Group on the Right to Education in the Face of Global Assaults at the 5th Democratic Education Congress, again organized by the Teacher’s Union Egitim Sen. Her “Survey of Teacher Profiles”(together with Rifat Okaçabol) was published in 1998. She was the editor of “Education in 75 years” published by the Turkish Economic and Social History Association. Her comic-book, and guide, “Towards a Educational Environment Respectful of Human Rights,” prepared together with Alper Sahin, takes a critical look to school and is used as a resource for the efforts to bring a democracy to schools. “Education in Multicultural Societies – Perspectives from Turkey and Sweden,” prepared together with Marie Carlson and Anika Rabo, was published by I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd. In 2007. Recently she convened the XIV. World Congress of Comparative Education Societies held in Istanbul during June 2010.

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

Plenary Speaker Barbara M. Kehm Joins 2012 World Universities Forum

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

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.

Fifth Annual World Universities Forum

Location and Date

The 2012 World Universities Forum will be held at the University of the Aegean in Rhodes, Greece from 8-10 January. For more information, please visit http://ontheuniversity.com/conference-2012/

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 current deadlines, 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 in order to be scheduled into the program.

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 2012 World Universities Forum, see: http://ontheuniversity.com/conference-2012/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.

Announcing the Winner for the 2010 Award for Best Policy in Higher Education

We are very pleased to announce that the University of the Free State, South Africa, is the 2010 recipient of the World Universities Forum Award for Best Practice in Higher Education. The Best Practice Award recognizes the most significant practices of the year and the University of the Free State’s implementation of ten interlocking innovations are certainly worthy of such recognition.

These innovations sought to transform the University in the face of “racial division, student failure and academic stagnation.”  The ten-point plan includes campus-wide racial integration among students, reinvigoration of academic culture through the hiring of new faculty, nurturing of the most promising young scholars, and sending

more than seventy first-year students to top American universities to assist their development into “non-racial” campus leaders.  The undergraduate curriculum was revised to promote a cross-disciplinarity approach to key societal problems; and both academic standards and support were raised.  Open access to campus leadership was facilitated through sessions with the vice-chancellor, providing opportunities for public discussion between senior leadership, staff and students.  The University extended this spirit of dialogue internationally through the inauguration of International Advisory Council of key thinkers and practitioners.  Perhaps the most innovate step was the identification of twenty of the most dysfunctional high schools in the province and build relationships with those schools. This university-school partnership is based on a strict contract of reciprocal commitments to increase the chances of black children attending university.

We feel that the University of the Free State’s ten innovations demonstrate the profound impact higher education practices can have when they are well conceived and implemented.  We applaud these innovations and the ways in which they promote racial harmony, student success and overall academic vitality.

The Best Practice Award will be announced formally at this year’s World Universities Forum, which will be held at the Hong Kong Institute of Education from 14-16 January 2011.  This marks the fourth year of the Forum, which was inaugurated in Davos, Switzerland in 2008 and was held in Mumbai, India in 2009, and again in Davos in 2010.  This year’s Hong Kong Forum will continue the discussion of the current role and future possibilities of the university, issues of especial concern in this era of dramatic change.  We are pleased that this discussion will include recognition of the University of the Free State and its tremendous efforts to address its own challenges.