International http://chronicle.com/section/International/34/ News :: International Japanese Students Abandon Studies for Job-Hunting Gantlet http://chronicle.com/article/Japanese-Students-Abandon/64007/ Already facing a faltering economy and a shrinking job market, Japanese university students have another obstacle course to cross at this time of year: the country's grueling job-hunting system.

By graduation this spring, many students will have spent 18 months and hundreds of hours preparing for and attending job interviews and recruitment fairs, all but abandoning study for months on end.

Japanese corporations famously prefer their new recruits fresh from their education,...

...]]> More Colleges Coach Professors to Lead Trips Abroad http://chronicle.com/article/More-Colleges-Coach-Professors/63901/ Faculty-led study-abroad programs have proliferated in recent years, as colleges have sought ways to give time- and cash-strapped students some international exposure. Marrying academics' international experience with students' interests has seemed an ideal match for many institutions.

But as the programs have grown, colleges have discovered that relying on faculty members to design and organize study-abroad trips does not always go as smoothly as hoped. Professors often lack the...

...]]> Table: International Fund-Raising by Higher-Education Institutions—a Survey Snapshot http://chronicle.com/article/Table-International/64027/
Respondents (alphabetical)1 Country International philanthropic
funds raised2		 International
funds as a
percent of total
philanthropic
funds raised		 Estimated
number of
foreign alumni		 Student
enrollment3
Aarhus School
... ...]]> Quebec Offers Fast-Tracked Canadian Citizenship to Foreign Students http://chronicle.com/article/Quebec-Offers-Fast-Tracked/63864/ Quebec is playing the citizenship card in a bid to recruit to Canada foreign students who might otherwise be tempted to study in Australia, Britain, or the United States.

The province's premier, Jean Charest, who is leading a delegation of university heads on a visit to India, told a packed meeting at the University of Mumbai on Monday that, starting on February 14, foreign students who graduated from universities in Quebec would get "a certificate of selection" that...

...]]> Rankled by Rankings http://chronicle.com/article/Rankled-by-Rankings/63786/ International university rankings have become a major force in higher education over the past decade. Institutions now highlight their standing in their advertising campaigns. Students turn to the lists for ideas on where to apply. Some governments have even invested more in higher education when their universities' rankings don't satisfy expectations.

Yet it's hard to find anyone who believes that the assessments themselves are sufficiently substantive.

In response to growing...

...]]> OECD Project Seeks International Measures for Assessing Educational Quality http://chronicle.com/article/OECD-Project-Seeks/63764/ The first phase of an ambitious international study that intends to assess and compare learning outcomes in higher-education systems around the world was announced here on Wednesday at the conference of the Council for Higher Education Accreditation.

The study, called the Assessment of Higher Education Learning Outcomes, is a project of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Richard Yelland, of the OECD's Education Directorate, is leading the project, which...

...]]> Death and Devastation Haunt Haiti's Shattered Universities http://chronicle.com/article/DeathDevastation-Haunt/63725/ Education is an important and often-elusive leg up in this desperately poor Caribbean nation of nine million, so the devastating earthquake that struck here two weeks ago stole more than the lives of tens of thousands of Haitians. The quake came close to stealing the country's educational future.

Throughout this capital city, institutions of higher learning collapsed on themselves, burying students and faculty members alike. In addition to the University of Port-au-Prince, various...

...]]> At State U. of Haiti, Officials Count Their Losses and Mourn Their Dead http://chronicle.com/article/At-State-U-of-Haiti/63713/ As rescue workers struggle to provide food and medical care to survivors of Haiti's devastating earthquake last week, administrators at the State University of Haiti are mourning their dead while working to assess the damage to the country's main institution of higher education.

The news is not good. An unknown number of students and faculty and staff members were killed when buildings collapsed on campuses of the university scattered across the Haitian capital of...

...]]> Slide Show: From Miami to Port-au-Prince http://chronicle.com/article/Slide-Show-From-Miami-to/63696/ ...

...]]> American Universities Rush to the Front Lines in Haiti http://chronicle.com/article/American-Universities-Rush-to/63692/ Brian W. Loggie, a professor of surgery at the Creighton University School of Medicine, has gotten little sleep in the past week.

Days after a devastating magnitude-7.0 earthquake rocked Haiti, Dr. Loggie and several of his colleagues arrived at a medical facility in the Dominican Republic, 30 miles from Port-au-Prince, Haiti's capital. Since then, they have been operating on victims and trying to manage the flow of the hundreds of people overwhelming the facility.

"What we've...

...]]> Slide Show: A Campus in Ruins http://chronicle.com/article/Slide-Show-A-Campus-in-Ruins/63693/ Last week The Chronicle sent a photographer to the University of Port-au-Prince, a small private campus that had been destroyed in the earthquake.

...

...]]> 5 Minutes With 2 Students Who Captured an Earthquake's Aftermath http://chronicle.com/article/5-Minutes-With-2-Students-Who/63697/ Jon G. Bougher and Roman Safiullin, graduate students in film at the University of Florida, were in Haiti when the 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck on January 12. The students, who had arrived just three days earlier, were filming a documentary for their master's thesis. Mr. Bougher and Mr. Safiullin were in Delmas 33, a town about 25 miles from the epicenter. They returned safely to the United States several days later, Mr. Bougher on one of the few planes leaving Haiti, and Mr. Safiullin...

...]]> In Education Minister's 'Bolt Out of the Blue,' National U. of Ireland Faces Extinction http://chronicle.com/article/In-Education-Ministers-Bolt/63679/ The National University of Ireland, a century-old federal institution that comprises some of the country's leading universities and colleges, including University College Dublin, is facing dissolution. Ireland's education minister, Batt O'Keeffe, announced the move on Wednesday,...

...]]> Canadian Professor Is Found Among Haiti Quake's Casualties http://chronicle.com/article/Canadian-Professor-Is-Found/63627/ A computer-science professor from Quebec who was lecturing at a university in Haiti has been confirmed as another victim of the devastating earthquake that shattered the island nation last Tuesday. But amid the chaos in the capital city, Port-au-Prince, came a more hopeful report that rescue crews had pulled a 29-year-old Haitian student alive from the rubble of a university building days after the quake.

The Canadian professor, Denis Bellavance, of the College of General and...

...]]> A Russian University Gets Creative Against Corruption http://chronicle.com/article/A-Russian-University-Gets/63522/ A student walks down the hallway of a university building and, in a stroke of luck, finds a 1,000-ruble bill lying on the floor. As he bends down to grab it, an idea crosses his mind.

"That is going to be just enough to pay for my exam!" he exclaims.

Then the figure of a man in a suit blocks the light over the squatting student.

"No it won't!" the man says, shaking his head.

In the next moment, the student is literally kicked out of the university, his official...

...]]> Dartmouth's President, a Global Health Leader, Offers Perspectives on Helping Haiti http://chronicle.com/article/Dartmouths-President-a/63557/ Dartmouth College is one of several American universities to announce it is sending faculty members with medical and global-health expertise to Haiti to help with relief efforts following this week's devastating earthquake.

But the Ivy League institution's president, Jim Yong Kim, may be unusual among higher-education leaders in the depth of his ties to the impoverished Caribbean nation.

Dr. Kim, who became...

...]]> Amid Haiti's Devastation, More Missing Students Turn Up, and Some Are Evacuated http://chronicle.com/article/Amid-Haitis-Devastation-More/63524/ American colleges are slowly beginning to account for their students and faculty members caught up in Tuesday's devastating earthquake in Haiti, and a handful, including an Arizona State University graduate student whose foot had to be amputated, have made it back to the United States on relief flights.

But other news has been less positive. The University of Virginia announced on Thursday that a 2009...

...]]> British University Leaders Sharply Denounce New Budget Cuts http://chronicle.com/article/British-University-Leaders/63520/ University leaders in Britain are raising the alarm about sweeping budget cuts announced late last year by the government, saying that the measures "would have a devastating effect" and threaten to bring the country's higher-education system "to its knees."

The stark warning—which includes fears that dozens of universities may have to shrink drastically or close—came in an...

...]]> American Colleges Scramble to Contact Students and Professors in Haiti http://chronicle.com/article/American-Colleges-Scramble-to/63518/ American colleges were struggling to extract—and, in some cases, even reach—students, and faculty and staff members studying and traveling in Haiti in the wake of a deadly earthquake there Tuesday, a task made more difficult by the extent of the devastation and by already poor infrastructure in the Caribbean nation

At least two institutions—Lynn University and the University of Florida—had students or employees yet to be accounted for, as of Wednesday...

...]]> Tehran Students Say Professor Killed in Bombing Was Opponent of Regime http://chronicle.com/article/Tehran-Students-Say-Professor/63504/ A University of Tehran professor who was killed in a bomb blast outside his home in the Iranian capital this morning was an outspoken supporter of the opposition politician Mir Hossein Moussavi who had encouraged students in their recent antigovernment protests, a student at the university said in an e-mail message from Tehran.

The student's characterization of Massoud Ali Mohammadi, a physics professor at Iran's leading higher-education institution, was at odds with the depiction of...

...]]> In India, a Student-Recruiting Industry Ups the Ante for U.S. Colleges http://chronicle.com/article/In-India-a-Student-Recruiting/63467/ In a leafy residential neighborhood of India's capital, test-preparation companies' signs tacked on light poles promise help in getting into American colleges. Your passport to a secure future!

In a downtown commercial district, overseas-admissions counselors advertise their expertise with floor-to-ceiling posters in the lobbies of high-rise office towers. A better tomorrow for a generation of today!

In small offices over a local McDonald's,...

...]]> After Bomb Plot, British Universities Again Wrestle With Issues of Security and Freedom http://chronicle.com/article/After-Bomb-Plot-British/63477/ British universities are once again facing tough questions about the extent to which they may be potential breeding grounds for extremist activity following the attempted Christmas Day attack on a passenger jet bound for Detroit. Officials worry about how they can protect their campuses from exploitation by extremists without jeopardizing the university's essential function as a safe environment for exploring new and even potentially radical ideas.

The suspect in the attempted attack,...

...]]> Less Politics, More Poetry: China's Colleges Eye the Liberal Arts http://chronicle.com/article/Less-Politics-More-Poetry-/63356/ A mandarin silk jacket buttoned over his chest, Philip Webb paces theatrically across the classroom and informs his students they will each have 15 seconds to address the class on a topic—any topic.

One by one, the 10 advanced English students at United International College rise and speak, their giggles giving way to excited outbursts. One reminisces about his hometown. Another discusses a favorite pop star.

This is not the traditional Chinese classroom: the laughs, the...

...]]> Economic Crisis in Dubai Hits American Branch Campuses http://chronicle.com/article/Economic-Crisis-in-Dubai-Hits/49489/ Dubai's spectacular economic tumble is hurting more than just businesses here. The branch campuses of two prominent American universities are struggling to attract students as this debt-ridden emirate's finances continue to deteriorate.

Michigan State University and the Rochester Institute of Technology opened campuses in Dubai in...

...]]> Academics of African Diaspora Reach Back to Help Universities Rebuild http://chronicle.com/article/Academics-of-African-Diaspora/49441/ Before Akanmu Adebayo left Nigeria, in 1992, he knew he was treading on dangerous ground. As the country languished under a military dictatorship hostile to academics, Mr. Adebayo, a professor of West Africa's economic history, worried that his lectures on topics like the role of institutional corruption in the region's underdevelopment could make him a target.

"You would have spies in your classes, reporting you anytime you mentioned anything," he recalls. "Colleagues would get home...

...]]> 8 Agencies Are Certified to Recruit Students From Abroad http://chronicle.com/article/8-Agencies-Are-Certified-to/49365/ Eight independent agencies that recruit college students from abroad have passed a rigorous certification process, the American International Recruitment Council, a new standards-setting body, announced this weekend. That is the latest indication of the growing legitimacy of the use of such recruiters by American colleges.

The companies took part in a months-long pilot certification process and...

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