February 15, 2012, 11:57 am
By Nigel Thrift
Last week Monash and Warwick launched an attempt, unique so far as I know, to build a globally networked university through cooperation as well as organic growth. It is early days, of course, but the omens are good.
Why so? Because both partners are whole-hearted. We realized early on that what counted in forming an alliance was that the cultures of both universities had to be similar. Without that precondition, nothing else would happen. And both universities are similar in that they are both children of the 1960s who have had to do it pretty much for themselves without benefit of large endowments or similar forms of largess.
The process is premised on specific assumptions about the shape of global higher education in 20 years time. It could be argued that there will be four chief models of university around the world by then. First, there will be the 30 or so institutions with…
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February 14, 2012, 10:26 am
By Jason Lane and Kevin Kinser
In recent days, the actions of two higher-education institutions have raised concerns about the oversight of their internationalization activities. Last week, an audit of Dickinson State University, a public institution in North Dakota, revealed that the institution had operated as a diploma mill for hundreds of international students, awarding degrees despite the individuals not completing all degree requirements, and many not even having a basic level of English proficiency. This week, a New York Times article raised concerns about degrees being offered by Empire State College (ESC) in Albania. ESC, part of New York’s public higher-education system, was operating in cooperation with the University of New York, Tirana (a private entity registered in Albania), to offer degree-granting academic programs to local students. The Times’ investigations suggested that the students were …
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February 13, 2012, 4:26 pm
By Guest Writer
The following is a guest post by Jenna Reinbold, an assistant professor of religion at Colgate University. Ms. Reinbold and 26 other Colgate faculty members–10 percent of the institution’s faculty–traveled to India for two weeks as part of an effort to internationalize the material they teach in the university’s core curriculum. The trip was paid for in part by a grant Colgate’s president had received from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
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Colgate faculty members in India. Photo courtesy of Christopher Henke.
I estimate that I brushed my teeth about 29 times while in India. On two of these occasions, I found myself…
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February 9, 2012, 3:26 pm
By Guest Writer
The following is a guest post by Elspeth Jones, professor emerita of the internationalization of higher education at Leeds Metropolitan University, in Britain, and an international-education consultant.
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Last month, The New York Times published a provocative essay by Larry H. Summers which argued, amongst other things, that American college students don’t necessarily need to learn a second language. The spread of English globally, the fragmentation of other languages, and the improvement in translation technology, he writes, “make it less clear that the substantial investment necessary to speak a foreign tongue is universally worthwhile.” I couldn’t disagree more.
Prompt responses from Nafsa: The Association of International Educators and others presented alternative viewpoints, but it is difficult …
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February 7, 2012, 1:46 pm
By Jason Lane and Kevin Kinser
Around the globe, it seems that the internationalization of higher education and economic competitiveness strategies are merging. In fact, many nations have now developed competitiveness strategies that include investment in both domestic and foreign educational institutions. As we read the latest report by the Observatory for Borderless Higher Education (OBHE) on international branch campuses (IBCs), we were struck by how rapidly IBCs seem to have emerged as tools for institutions to pursue internationalization and nations to enhance economic competitiveness.
First, we should note the status of IBCs appears to be strong. The OBHE authors suggest there are about 200 such institutions currently operating in 67 different countries. The number of such institutions appears to be growing at a fairly rapid rate, even with the publicity generated by several famous failures in recent…
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February 6, 2012, 1:47 pm
By Nigel Thrift
It is interesting to consider just what proportion of world art and culture is housed in galleries and museums owned by universities. I suspect that the figure would be a pretty impressive one, any way you look at it. But what is really impressive is not the quantity but the sheer exuberance of so many university collections.
A number of examples come immediately to mind. Take museums. When I was a member of Oxford University I had quite a bit to do with some of the magnificent Oxford collections and no doubt it would seem rational to point to the newly redeveloped and completely transformed Ashmolean as the jewel in the crown, but my own favourite was undoubtedly the museum that (then at least–it has subsequently been extended and renovated) was tucked away at the back of the Oxford Natural History Museum, the Pitt-Rivers. An anthropological museum it is but of a very specific kind…
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February 1, 2012, 4:40 pm
By Guest Writer
The following is a guest post by Sir John Daniel, the chief executive of the Commonwealth of Learning, in Vancouver, and a former assistant director-general for education with the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization.
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On September 12, 2002, speaking at the United Nations to mark the first anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, U.S. President George W. Bush announced that the United States would rejoin Unesco. The United States had quit Unesco in 1984 to protest the restrictions on press freedom inherent in the controversial New World Information and Communication Order. That issue, however, had disappeared with the Berlin Wall and a return to the cultural and educational organization was overdue. I was then serving as Unesco’s assistant director-general for education and we…
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January 30, 2012, 4:54 pm
By Guest Writer
The following is a guest post by Marion Lloyd, chief project coordinator at the Office for Institutional Assessment at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and a former Latin America correspondent for The Chronicle.
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Citing the need to “democratize” access to higher education, Mexican President Felipe Calderón announced this month the country’s first system of federally-backed commercial student loans. The National Program for Financing Higher Education, presented amid much fanfare on January 9, seeks to extend some $200-million in loans this year to more than 23,000 college students. As public universities are free, the program only applies to students at private universities.
At first glance, the government’s decision to work with private lenders to expand credit options for students might…
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January 27, 2012, 5:20 pm
By Nigel Thrift
In the rest of this century, I suspect that getting our cities right will be one of the most pressing of the many lines of research that universities will have to engage with. Why would I make such a strong statement?
Here are the facts. As Burdett and Sujdic note in Living in the Endless City, cities and metropolitan regions make up only 2 percent of the world’s land surface, but they are already lived in by 53 percent of its inhabitants, a figure which is expected to reach 75 percent by 2050. In other words, the 21st century is witnessing the great and final decanting of humanity out of rural areas and into “arrival cities,” to purloin the theme of Doug Saunders’ recent highly readable book. Only this week it was announced that at the end of 2011, more than half of China’s 1.35 billion people were now living in cities.
The result is that all kinds of problems start and end …
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January 23, 2012, 2:29 pm
By Guest Writer
The following is a guest post by John K. Hudzik, former vice president for global and strategic projects at Michigan State University and former president of Nafsa: Association of International Educators.
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Higher-education internationalization is a hot topic. In the past year a robust discussion about the issues and challenges surrounding the international efforts of higher education has developed. I contributed an essay to these discussions titled, “Comprehensive Internationalization: From Concept to Action,” and have spoken about internationalization over the last eight months at conferences across five continents. With insightful commentaries by other academics, including Uwe Brandenburg, Jane Knight, Elspeth Jones, Francisco Marmolejo, and Hans de Wit, thinking about internationalization has been…
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