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17 décembre 2011

‘Super university’ reveals new vision to boost economy

http://images.icnetwork.co.uk/collections/css_r25_walesonline/mobile_promo.jpgBy Graham Henry. A university has revealed its vision for higher education in Wales.
The super-university proposal, submitted by the University of Newport, is the latest twist in the ongoing debate on the future of higher education in Wales.
Under Newport’s plans, the new institution would have a new leadership and a new curriculum serving South East Wales.
The move follows formal acceptance of recommendations from the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales (Hefcw) by Education Minister Leighton Andrews of a merged university in the region.
Newport said that the new institution would focus “relentlessly on job creation, economic growth and skills”, and could include any of the other institutions in the region.
Mooted merged institutions in the past have involved combining Newport, University of Glamorgan and Cardiff Metropolitan University. Cardiff Met has historically been hostile to merger talks, fearing being subsumed in a larger institution by bigger partners.
A recent poll of students enrolled at Cardiff Met – formerly the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff (Uwic) – found that 83% were against the merger and 95% believed any collaboration would damage their studies.
But Newport said that, while the new institution would be based in existing institutions in South East Wales, it would not involve the “takeover” of one institution by another and therefore would not allow one institution to “dominate”.
Its vice-chancellor, Dr Peter Noyes, told the Western Mail that it could be a “break” from the “often vitriolic” exchanges in merger talks in the past.
He said: “We have got to get away from the history of mergers, which has been fraught with difficulties in South East Wales, and establish something brand new.
“It would give some much-needed perspective on what the economy needs, what the students of tomorrow will need. It would get away from the historical detritus of discussions that went wrong because of who-said-what-to-whom and who would be the vice-chancellor and so on. It would be a new rationale.”
The university said that it would be built on the model of a “teaching hospital”, involving students across faculties helping to deliver public services and support business growth. It would also be created with faculties mapped to key areas of employment in both public and private spheres in the region.
The university also said it would seek assurances on the governance arrangements, enhancing its mission of “widening participation and driving economic growth” in Gwent.
Education Minister Leighton Andrews has already approved the creation of a “super” university, after accepting the “main thrust” of the controversial Hefcw report.
He also issued a veiled threat that the Welsh Government would use the power of dissolution “if we have to” – but as a last resort.
It comes as Aberystwyth and Bangor Universities signed a strategic alliance to strengthen ties between them, short of a formal merger.
But Dr Noyes said that the idea of a forced dissolution from the Welsh Government was an “anathema”.
“I think we have got to value the ability of institutions to come to their own conclusions about their own futures,” he said.
“I think the concept of going to other institutions and forcing them into this – what would be an entrepreneurial institution – would be an anathema to me.”
The teaching hospital idea would see students working with employers as part of their training, Dr Noyes said, which could “improve financial literacy, entrepreneurship and skills for the workplace”.
Dr Noyes said: “We are in difficult times for the economy and in higher education. To blindly hold on to entrenched positions at a time when we need to move forward with new approaches would be a retrograde step.”
A Welsh Government spokeswoman said that the Minister considered there to be a “persuasive case” for a merger of the three, but said it would be “inappropriate” to comment on suggestions made by any one university ahead of a consultation.
“The current reconfiguration proposals present an opportunity for the development of a strong, competitive, post-1992 university in South East Wales,” she said.
A spokeswoman for the University of Glamorgan said that it welcomed all “positive and constructive” contributions to the debate about higher education in South East Wales.
A spokesman for Cardiff Met said it did not wish to comment.
11 décembre 2011

Gifted flee to foreign fields as Italy is strangled by blood ties

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/magazine/graphics/mastheads/mast_blank.gifBy Frank Nowikowski. High levels of nepotism suggested by US analysis linked to 'brain drain'. The University of Bologna is one of the world's oldest higher education institutions and the best in Italy. Yet despite such distinction, it still languishes outside the top 200 of the Times Higher Education World University Rankings.
One reason for the poor performance of Italian institutions in world league tables may be nepotism, it has been suggested. The practice has been blamed for a "brain drain" that has seen many of the country's best researchers move to the US or the UK after failing to progress at home because of their lack of connections. This is an open secret in Italy. The news magazine l'Espresso and newspaper La Repubblica have reported that in Rome's La Sapienza University, a third of teaching staff are closely related. Questions were raised after the wife, son and daughter of Luigi Frati, La Sapienza's chancellor, were hired by its medical faculty.
At the University of Bari in the southern region of Puglia, Lanfranco Massari, a professor of economics, has three sons and five grandchildren who are colleagues in the same department. And at the University of Palermo, Angelo Milone, a professor in the architectural faculty, works alongside his brother, son and daughter. Italy's universities are 10 times more likely than other places of work to employ two or more members of the same family, according to The Independent newspaper.
Of course, not all of this can be attributed to nepotism. But the predominance of family connections in Italy's academic institutions is revealed by a computer analysis by a researcher at the University of Chicago. Stefano Allesina, assistant professor in the department of ecology and evolution's Computation Institute, compared the frequency of last names among lecturers in a number of fields, including medicine, engineering and law. His findings were reported in a recent paper, "Measuring Nepotism through Shared Last Names: The Case of Italian Academia", published in the online journal PLoS ONE.
What's in a name?

Professor Allesina examined a public database created by the Italian Ministry of Education, Universities and Research that included the first and last name as well as other information on more than 61,000 tenured teachers from 94 institutions, along with their department and subdiscipline. He ran a simple analysis of last-name frequency in the database, testing whether certain names appeared more often than expected in a given field. He also programmed a computer to test 1 million random samples from the pool.
Of the 10,783 faculty members working in medicine, 7,471 distinct last names were found. But in the random test from the full pool, the paper states that Professor Allesina never observed "a lower number of distinct names out of the million drawings: the paucity of names is extremely unlikely to be observed at random, indicating a very high likelihood of nepotistic practices".
"It's very basic; anybody with a laptop can do this analysis," Professor Allesina said. "I found that in many disciplines there are [far] fewer names than you would expect to find at random, indicating a very...high probability of nepotistic hires."
He ran the analysis for 28 academic fields and found the highest rates of suggested nepotism were in industrial engineering, law, medicine, geography and pedagogy. Fields with the distribution of names closest to random - and thus with the lowest likelihood of nepotism - were linguistics, demography and psychology. Professor Allesina also looked at the geographic distribution of nepotism across Italy. His analysis unearthed a stark north-to-south gradient, with the probability of nepotism increasing as one moved south, peaking in Sicily. This mirrors a north-south divide in social indicators including infant mortality, organised crime and suicide rates.
"For an Italian, this is not that surprising," he said. "It is a narrative of two separate countries, where in the public sector we have more problems in the south."
He said that nepotism was a major factor in the "enormous" brain drain suffered by Italy. His report adds that the practice is seen in the country "as a cancer that has metastasized, invading many segments of society".
11 décembre 2011

Professors warn over expansion of private universities

http://profile.ak.fbcdn.net/hprofile-ak-ash2/373723_143666524748_940129768_q.jpgBy Graeme Paton, Education Editor. Coalition plans to expand the number of private universities risks leading to higher drop out rates and lower academic standards, according to a powerful lobby of almost 500 professors.
It is claimed that giving profit-making companies access to state funding will create a system in which institutions pursue short-term financial gains at the expense of a decent education.
In a letter to The Daily Telegraph today, professors say that proposals spelt out in a recent higher education White Paper will “condemn generations of students” to an experience similar to that in the US where many undergraduates fail to complete their degree and struggle to pay off loans.
Academics including Prof Martin Hall, vice-chancellor of Salford University, Prof Alan Ryan, former warden of New College, Oxford, Lord Liddle, director of Cumbria University, and Prof Roger Brown, co-director of the Centre for Higher Education Research Development at Liverpool Hope University, called for the Government to reassess the reforms. The comments will reignite the debate over the proposed expansion of English higher education.
Under plans, ministers will make it easier for private providers to enter the universities sector by simplifying the regime for obtaining and renewing degree-awarding powers.
Universities should not be run for profit

We are deeply concerned about the Government’s proposals for higher education, which would give private, for-profit companies substantial access to publicly subsidised loans and would allow companies, including private equity firms, to acquire struggling universities.
The record of private equity firms in delivering public services is exemplified by the recent debacle at Southern Cross. In the United States (the higher education system the Government is now trying to emulate), the private sector is well established, with students and taxpayers suffering the consequences.
For-profit companies offer derisory graduation rates, crushing levels of debts and degrees of dubious value. According to the US Education Trust, only 20 per cent of students at for-profit colleges complete a four-year course and the same proportion of those who do finish default on their loans within three years.
American companies recruit just 10 per cent of students, but consume 25 per cent of government-backed loans. To allow institutions driven by the pursuit of short-term shareholder value to get a foothold in higher education will be to condemn generations of students to a similar future, while the taxpayer will pick up the cost.
Sally Hunt

General Secretary, University and College Union
Professor Martin Hall

Vice Chancellor, Salford University
Lord Liddle of Carlisle

Director, University of Cumbria
Lord Elis-Thomas

President, Bangor University
7 décembre 2011

La gestion de données par l'humain encore balbutiante en France

http://www.usinenouvelle.com/images/header/logo-usn.pngPar Barbara Leblanc. Les données sont partout, tant dans l’administration que dans les entreprises. Le gouvernement vient de lancer ce 5 décembre la plateforme de données publiques, "data.gouv.fr". Pour autant, le pays et notamment les entreprises restent à la traîne, notamment en ce qui concerne le capital humain.
Réseaux sociaux, nouvelles technologies, tablettes…tous ces outils entraînent une multiplication des données dans les entreprises. Si bien que selon un rapport d’EMC estime que d’ici à 2020 les entreprises auront besoin de dix fois plus de capacité de stockage qu’actuellement.
Or, en France, les grands groupes sont encore à la traîne par rapport aux Etats-Unis notamment. Par exemple, outre-Atlantique, un nouveau profil émerge dans les entreprises, celui du data scientist. Il a pour fonction de collecter et analyser les masses de données présentes dans l’entreprise. Un atout pour les entreprises qui peuvent ainsi transformer une quantité importante de données pour innover et dépasser ses concurrents. En France, seule une entreprise sur cinq a déjà fait appel à ce profil.
Plus globalement, l’étude déplore la pénurie de compétences dans le domaine dans le monde. Seul un tiers des entreprises sont en mesure d’utiliser de manière efficace les nouvelles données. Et pour cause: 32% des personnes interrogées soulignent que le manque de compétences et de formation dans le domaine est un frein à l’adoption de tels profils, à égalité avec une problématique de coûts. Le manque d’outils et de technologies est un frein pour 10% seulement.
L’étude reste optimiste tout de même: 83% des répondants estiment que les nouveaux outils vont augmenter la nécessité d’avoir des personnes expérimentées dans ce secteur. "La technologie a évolué plus vite que les compétences, souligne Andreas Weigend, chef de laboratoire de données sociales à Stanford, ancien expert scientifique chez Amazon.com. C’est désormais aux organisations de chaque secteur de s'adapter à cette nouvelle réalité ou bien de périr".
L’entreprise spécialisée dans le stockage de données EMC a réalisé son étude en interrogeant 500 membres de la communauté scientifique des données au niveau mondial, notamment des scientifiques de données et des professionnels du renseignement d’affaires. Et ce, à travers la Chine, l’Inde, la France, l’Allemagne, le Royaume-Uni ou encore les Etats-Unis. Data scientist par EMC.
http://www.usinenouvelle.com/images/header/logo-usn.png Barbara Leblanc. Dane są wszędzie, zarówno w administracji i przedsiębiorstwach. Rząd uruchomił ten 5 grudnia platformy danych publicznych, "data.gouv.fr". Jednak w kraju, a zwłaszcza przedsiębiorstwa pozostają w tyle, szczególnie w odniesieniu do kapitału ludzkiego.
Sieci społeczne, nowe technologie, półki ... wszystkie te narzędzia prowadzić do rozprzestrzeniania danych w firmach.
Tak wynika z raportu firmy EMC szacuje, że do 2020 roku firmy będą musiały dziesięć razy większej pojemności niż obecnie. Więcej...
5 septembre 2011

Minding the Midpoint Where Labor and Education Meet

http://chronicle.com/img/chronicle_logo.gifBy Kevin Carey. In the early 1970s, when Anthony Carnevale was a young man, he came to the nation's capital seeking justice for low-income students. The Supreme Court disappointed him, but his experiences set him on a path tracking profound changes in the relationship between higher education and the economy. During his working lifetime, college has become, for better or worse, the only American job-training system that matters. And today Carnevale, more than anyone else, is responsible for explaining why.
If his name sounds familiar, that's because the small research group he leads at Georgetown University's Center on Education and the Workforce has produced a seemingly endless stream of studies over the last two years that describe, in various ways, the value of college in the labor market. Hundreds of thousands of people­—most of them nonacademics—have read those reports, which have received prominent coverage in The Chronicle and in other national media like The New York Times.
In total, the center's message has been overwhelmingly positive for higher education. Despite the long-term growth in college enrollments, and contrary to fashionable speculation that a "higher-education bubble" is about to burst, the center's research shows that college pays, now more than ever. Indeed, the center projects a future shortage of about three million college-educated workers if the nation doesn't increase the number of those receiving college degrees. At a time when public colleges and universities are struggling to get funds from cash-strapped state legislatures, the center's data make a powerful case for new public investment in higher learning. But, as Carnevale is the first to acknowledge, yoking universities to a job-training mission for which they were arguably not designed creates many dangers and complications.
Carnevale himself is an object lesson in the value of higher education. Born into modest economic circumstances, he graduated from Colby College before going to Syracuse University to earn a Ph.D. in public-finance economics. While there, he volunteered to work on the landmark Rodriguez v. San Antonio Independent School District lawsuit that was eventually decided by the Supreme Court in 1973. Barely out of college, he sat in the front of the court's soaring chambers and listened to the justices debate his analysis of profound financial inequities in education for impoverished children. Unfortunately, they decided by a single vote that the injustice, while real, was not unconstitutional.
The suit against the State of Texas threw a wrench in Carnevale's plans to continue academic work at the University of Texas at Austin's school of public affairs. He decided instead to stay in Washington and improve education another way: He was soon responsible for education, training, employment policy, and social services as a staff member on the newly formed Senate Budget Committee.
It's hard to fathom now, but in the mid-1970s, people seriously questioned the relationship between earnings and college education. Media discussion was dominated by books like Richard B. Freeman's The Overeducated American, which predicted that a glut of degrees would push wages for college-educated workers down. Even People magazine weighed in with skepticism: "Is a college degree still a passport to white-collar success?"
So when the federal government tried to tackle employment problems in the 70s, it's perhaps unsurprising that it didn't turn to higher education. Billions of dollars were spent creating hundreds of thousands of publicly subsidized jobs through the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act. But CETA was politically unpopular and plagued by local corruption. It was repealed in the early 1980s, and the federal government never tried to directly create jobs on such a scale again.
As it happens, that was also when the value of college degrees began to skyrocket. Freeman had it exactly wrong: The value of degrees increased even as the supply of degrees grew. The economy steadily transformed itself to match the advanced skills that higher education conferred. Unlike Europe, America lacked a widespread system of job training through labor unions working in collaboration with government. In part through policy and in part by default, higher education became a place—for most people, the only place—that granted access to jobs and careers that paid enough money to lead a good life.
Carnevale watched all of this happen in real time—first through the budget battles in Congress, where education and training duked it out with national defense. (He still has a scale model of the doomed B-1 bomber on his desk, a gift from an embittered defense contractor.) That was followed by high-level appointments to national commissions by Presidents Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton. As the years passed and college degrees became ever more valuable, Carnevale noticed that the government and the economics profession weren't keeping up. The federal government still had a Labor Department that didn't care much about education and an Education Department that didn't care much about labor. Economists specialized in one or the other but not both, even as the economy increasingly saw educational and labor credentials as one and the same.
Carnevale conceived of the Center on Education and the Workforce as, metaphorically, a small wooden shack in the center of the National Mall at the midpoint between the giant labor and education bureaucracies to the north and south. By taking the time to carefully analyze the complex interaction between different kinds of degrees, career paths, and earnings, the center has come to dominate the national conversation on higher education and the economy in a manner far out of proportion to its size. Carnevale takes pains to emphasize that while degrees matter, some college degrees are far more valuable than others. In times past, people chose a specific industry and built a career of many occupations, rising in the ranks from the loading dock to the factory floor, management, and beyond. Today, people choose an occupation and move through different industries.
Yet political power in America is still dominated by industries, not occupations. This worries Carnevale, as does the awkward fit between the tradition of colleges as wellsprings of knowledge creation and their new occupational role. "Higher education is stuck with job training," he says. "It's a bittersweet reality for them. Colleges would be very small if they didn't serve that function, but if they serve it they have to be accountable for it." Carnevale also emphasizes the role of colleges in helping people become enlightened citizens as vital for democracy. "You don't want a system that just trains foot soldiers for capitalism," he says. At the same time, it's hard to be an enlightened citizen if you can't find a decent job.
As policy makers push to fill the future shortage of college degrees, they will almost certainly focus on practical credentials that lead to employment. This is very clearly what the public wants from higher education, and the people who get those degrees will disproportionately come from middle- and lower-income families that are highly vulnerable in turbulent economic times. Those degree-holders will be more prosperous and secure, and only those who have lived the pain and fear of true economic insecurity can know how much that means. But many will have little contact with the ideas and ideals that characterize the historic core of higher learning.
These knotty problems are at the center of Carnevale's work. It's fortunate that someone who has spent a lifetime thinking about them now has the ear of the wider world.
Kevin Carey is policy director of Education Sector, an independent think tank in Washington.
30 août 2011

Professor Abandons His Eternal Search for a Parking Space

http://forums.chronicle.com/img/photos/biz/icons/tweed.jpgBy Don Troop. Danford W. Middlemiss is done looking for parking at Canada’s Dalhousie University. After waiting in line for more than an hour on Monday to purchase a parking pass — only to learn that all the passes had been sold and that he would have to return the next day — the political-science professor pulled the plug on his career of 31 years, according to an article on the CBC News Web site.
“I went straight upstairs, I said, ‘I’m not kidding this time, I don’t have to put up with this. I’m resigning,’” said Mr. Middlemiss.
Dalhousie, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, reportedly has 2,000 parking spaces for 17,000 students and 3,000 employees. It has traditionally oversold parking passes by 65 percent, meaning that they function more as hunting licenses than as parking permits. This year, however, the university was going to cap its overselling at 20 to 30 percent and add 200 guaranteed spots for motorists willing to pay a premium. Additionally, Dalhousie reportedly has long-term plans for more bike racks, bus passes for staff, and a large parking garage.
It’s all too little, too late for Mr. Middlemiss, who said he always had to leave his home 10 miles away in Lower Sackville by 7 a.m. in order to be assured of finding parking before his 2:30 p.m. class. He said that he’d also tried parking in a Metro Transit lot 20 minutes from his home and taking a bus but that even that lot was often full.
Good luck, Mr. Middlemiss, and may your retirement be productive and full of open parking.
In the meantime, readers who are experts in Canadian defense policy and who are on the job market should direct their CVs to: Dalhousie University Department of Political Science, 6135 University Ave., Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada B3H 4R2. Applicants must enjoy commuting by bicycle.
So, how’s the parking on your campus?

11 août 2011

Academic Colonialism, False Consciousness, and the Western University Ideal

http://chronicle.com/img/photos/biz/icons/worldwise-nameplate.gifBy Ben Wildavsky. Is the spread of the Western higher education model around the world evidence that repressive colonialism is alive and well in academe? Apparently so, according to a statement issued by participants in the International Conference on Decolonizing Our Universities, held recently at the Universiti Sains Malaysia in Penang. The authors of the manifesto, which I read about last week in GlobalHigherEd, minced no words in describing the alleged harm done to universities outside the West by “the tutelage and tyranny of Western institutions.” They complained that in non-Western nations “indigenous intellectual traditions” have been denigrated and marginalized.
The group, which included participants from Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Iran, Japan, Malaysia, Nigeria, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Tanzania, Thailand, Turkey, and Uganda, duly issued a call to action: “We are firmly convinced that every trace of Eurocentrism in our universities – reflected in various insidious forms of western controls over publications, theories, and models of research must be subordinated to our scintillating cultural and intellectual traditions.” And so forth. For good measure, participants showed that they weren’t afraid to take things to the next level: they wrote a letter to UNESCO.
How seriously should one take such concerns? I’ve certainly heard assorted variations on these themes – mostly without the silly rhetoric, thankfully – from people who worry, for instance, that growing aspirations in the developing world to create Western-style world-class universities will result in a global homogenization of academic institutions. One Indian university president used the term “glocalization” to describe to me the balance he believes ought to be struck between a nation’s universities and the worldwide academic culture in which so many now operate. Many scholars in non-English speaking nations worry that growing pressures to publish in English will erode the study of certain national literatures and politics. And national-global tensions aren’t necessarily a function of language. An Australian economist who focuses on domestic public policy was among those who condemned government research rankings (since revamped) that gave the highest marks only to those who published in top international journals.
But if the rapid globalization of universities is certainly not without complications, it’s worth remembering that the Western university model has become dominant for a reason. While Western universities are not monolithic, the best among them are justly renowned for their massive contributions to the world’s store of knowledge (including knowledge of indigenous cultures in other countries). That’s precisely why countries such as China and South Korea want to emulate those institutions. More broadly, it’s hard to see how such admirable principles as freedom of inquiry, high standards of evidence, and merit-based hiring can be legitimately classified as colonialist practices. Recall, too, that the American liberal-arts model, with its emphasis on analytical thinking, is now widely admired in Asia – presumably because it has broad applicability across a range of cultures. And, of course, students from around the world flock to Western universities in massive numbers, seeking out precisely the kind of education that allegedly squelches their native traditions.
Could these mobile students suffer from what Marxist theory calls false consciousness, not understanding the nature of their own oppression? Hardly. After assessing the options available to them at home and further afield, they’re pursuing the opportunities that seem most desirable. Any country that wants to keep larger numbers of those students at home will have to create more, not fewer, Western-style educational options. Talk of colonialist academic oppression may make for stirring conference manifestos, but it fundamentally misreads the appeal of the Western academic model – and its unmistakable merits.
See also: Decolonising our universities: another world is desirable, DIALOG’s Nomadic University, and EUCEN 41st conference Education as a right - LLL for all: Europe has established relationships with the developing world mainly through development and international cooperation with a minimum impact on higher education so far. Thus colonial ties between some European countries and the developing World have been notorious, being European languages (French, English, Portuguese; even, Spanish) official in most developing countries of Africa, Latin America or Asia.
9 août 2011

A College Education for All, Free and Online

http://chronicle.com/img/banner_promo.jpgBy Kevin Carey. All around the world, people have been waiting for someone like Shai Reshef to come along. Reshef is the founder and president of the University of the People, a tuition-free online institution that enrolled its first class of students in 2009.
UoPeople strives to serve the vast numbers of students who have no access to traditional higher education. Some can't afford it, or they live in countries where there are simply no good colleges to attend. Others live in rural areas, or identify with a culture, an ethnicity, or a gender that is excluded from public services. UoPeople students pay an application fee of between $10 and $50 and must have a high-school diploma and be proficient in English. There are also small fees for grading final exams. Otherwise, it's free.
The university takes advantage of the growing body of free, open-access resources available online. Reshef made his fortune building for-profit higher-education businesses during the rise of the Internet, and he noticed a new culture of collaboration developing among young people who grew up in a wired world. So UoPeople relies heavily on peer-to-peer learning that takes place within a highly structured curriculum developed in part by volunteers. The university plans to award associate and bachelor's degrees, and it is now seeking American accreditation.
Rather than deploy the most sophisticated and expensive technology, UoPeople keeps it simple—everything happens asynchronously, in text only. As long as students can connect their laptops or mobile devices to a telecommunications network, somewhere, they can study and learn. For most of humanity, this is the only viable way to get access to higher education. When the university polled students about why they had enrolled, the top answer was, "What other choice do I have?"
Some observers have wondered how effective such an unorthodox learning model can be. But UoPeople's two courses of study—business administration and computer science­—were selected to be practical, culturally neutral, and straightforward.
The university has also accumulated an impressive array of peers and associates. UoPeople's provost, David Harris Cohen, was previously a top administrator at Columbia University. In June, New York University announced that it would consider transfer applications from students who complete a year at UoPeople. A few weeks later, Hewlett-Packard announced that UoPeople students would be eligible for the company's online-research internship program.
To date, UoPeople has enrolled just over 1,000 students in more than 115 countries. Reshef says he believes that the very act of putting students from different cultures in close collaboration is a step toward peace. He believes the university will grow to 10,000 students in five years. At that point, he says, it will be financially sustainable. That seems realistic. The university has received thousands of applications and more than 350,000 "likes" on Facebook.
The scale of the global population lacking access to higher education is gargantuan—Reshef puts it at 100 million people worldwide. It's outlandish to think that they'll get it through the construction of American-style colleges and universities—the most expensive model of higher education known to humankind, and getting more so every year. Low-cost, online higher-education tools are the future for most people. What remains to be seen is whether American institutions understand the opportunity and the obligation this future represents.
There are numerous American colleges and universities now sitting on multibillion-dollar endowments that grew significantly in part because of government tax breaks for charitable donations and capital gains. They have globally recognized brands that are worth billions more, names so powerful that students from the other side of the world are magnetically attracted to these institutions. They have accumulated the brightest scholars and students, many of whom loudly and publicly express their concerns about global-economic injustice.
Yet what exactly are these institutions doing to redress those injustices with the service they are built to provide­—higher education? In most cases, virtually nothing. John Sexton, the president of NYU, appears to be one of the elite higher-education leaders who most understands what's at stake: He has created a groundbreaking new NYU campus in Abu Dhabi and is looking to expand into China next. His enthusiasm for the UoPeople is no surprise. Nor is the presence of other NYU administrators in UoPeople leadership roles. Yale University has led the way in providing open-education resources, such as free, high-quality lecture videos, as have universities including Carnegie Mellon and MIT.
But those institutions are the exceptions. Harvard has made back some of the fortune it lost in the Wall Street casino, but it seems to have no inclination to use that money to educate more students. Undergraduates at the University of California at Berkeley can minor in global poverty, but Berkeley isn't using newly available online-learning tools to actually reduce global poverty by helping impoverished students earn college degrees. And while some institutions are publishing open-education resources, they aren't offering degrees to match.
Most elite American colleges are content to spend their vast resources on gilding their palaces of exclusivity. They worry that extending their reach might dilute their brand. Perhaps it might. Righteousness is easy; generosity is hard. In any event, Harvard's public-relations wizards managed to spin the university's decision to subsidize tuition for families making three times the median household income as a triumph of egalitarianism. The institution could easily use a program designed to help desperately needy students living in political, environmental, and economic turmoil to burnish Harvard's brand.
If Harvard doesn't seize the opportunity, some other university will. Reshef is the first to tell you that he didn't invent any of the tools that UoPeople employs. He's just the one who decided to build a whole university around the idea of using those tools to give students the education they need, the way they need it­—free. He won't be the last. If colleges with the means to do so don't contribute to the cause, they will at best have betrayed their obligations and their ideals. At worst, they will find themselves curating beautiful museums of a higher-education time gone by. Kevin Carey is policy director of Education Sector, an independent think tank in Washington.
12 juin 2011

Novel Academic Novels

http://chronicle.com/img/chronicle_logo.gifBy Ms. Mentor. Question: I want to do what my American idol, Walt Whitman, recommended for the summer: "loafe and invite my soul." Can Ms. Mentor suggest academic novels with which I, an academic fledgling, may most profitably loafe?
Answer: Ms. Mentor is charmed by your request. Obviously you also know your Horace, who told us that the purpose of literature is to delight and instruct. Novels about academics and academic life will do both. You'll see, for instance, the spasms of self-loathing, Weltschmerz, and ennui that supposedly plague midlife professors. You'll get the impression that entrenched male professors all pant for nubile "coeds," while neglecting their long-suffering wives. You'll find that bright female professors routinely solve murders, especially ones committed at the Modern Language Association's annual conference.

12 mai 2011

Tertiary Education for the Knowledge Society - Pointers for Policy Development

http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/img/new/common/logo_en.gifThese Pointers for Policy Development are drawn from the Thematic Review of Tertiary Education, which covered tertiary education policies in 24 countries. Many OECD countries have recently experienced rapid growth in tertiary education. With increasing globalisation of the economy and labour markets, their tertiary education systems are facing new pressures. This led the OECD’s Education Committee to request a major review of tertiary education. Twenty-four countries are participating in this review.
The review examines how the organisation, management and delivery of tertiary education can help countries achieve their economic and social objectives. It will focus primarily on national policies for tertiary education systems rather than on institutional policies and practices. Key questions include the economic and social objectives of tertiary education; sustainability, structures, links and mechanisms to ensure quality; mobilising adequate funding resources; and national policies and mechanisms to ensure effective governance. Rapport final : Tertiary Education for the Knowledge Society (en anglais uniquement).
http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/img/new/common/logo_en.gifNombre de pays membres de l’OCDE ont récemment connu un développement rapide de leur enseignement supérieur. Compte tenu de la mondialisation grandissante de l’économie et des marchés du travail, leurs systèmes d’enseignement supérieur doivent faire face à de nouvelles tensions. Cette situation a conduit le Comité des politiques de l’éducation de l’OCDE à demander un examen d’envergure de l’enseignement supérieur. Vingt-quatre pays participent à cet exercice.
Cet examen a pour objet de déterminer comment l’organisation, la gestion et la fourniture des activités d’enseignement supérieur peuvent aider les pays à atteindre les objectifs économiques et sociaux qui sont les leurs. Il porte principalement sur les politiques nationales applicables aux systèmes d’enseignement supérieur et non sur les politiques et pratiques des établissements. Les grandes questions étudiées sont entre autres les suivantes : les objectifs économiques et sociaux de l’enseignement supérieur ; la viabilité, les structures, les liens et les mécanismes propres à assurer la qualité ; la mobilisation de ressources financières adéquates ; et les politiques et mécanismes qui à l’échelle nationale visent à garantir une bonne gouvernance. Rapport final : Tertiary Education for the Knowledge Society (en anglais uniquement).
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