By Chris Parr. EU should place spiritual values above potential profit in funding considerations, Chris Parr hears.
Universities in the European Research Area have lost touch with the spiritual ideals of the European Union's founding fathers and should aim to restore such values to their scientific research, it has been claimed.
According to academics leading the Restoring Spiritual Values to European Science research project, policymakers in the ERA focus more on the potential for financial gain than on what research might achieve more widely. They want European science funding programmes to consider "spiritual" values when allocating grants.
John Wood, the principal investigator and former chief executive of the Council for the Central Laboratory of the Research Councils, said that the values of EU architects such as France's Robert Schuman and Germany's Konrad Adenauer, with their "Christian Democratic roots", "are not being reflected today in how science is undertaken". Read more...

When it comes to maintaining and building local, state and regional economies, it’s hard to ignore the sector of higher education that serves nearly every square inch of the country.
That’s the message of a new policy brief from the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) that examines the role of community colleges in providing worker training for constantly changing industries, which in turn stabilize and expand local economies.
"The data on economic returns to students and society are well-documented by leading scholars," said Christopher Mullin, program director for policy analysis at AACC and co-author of the brief, "Community College Contributions." Read more...

By Nick Petford. Universities and football teams have much in common, says Nick Petford – should fans in both arenas now accept that their beautiful games are first and foremost businesses?
I have been a Chelsea fan since the age of nine so it was a pleasure on Christmas day to unwrap the book, I Am The Secret Footballer. Not because Mr S Footballer is likely a Chelsea player (the internet is rife with speculation over his identity), but rather due to the book's claim that most fans don't understand what football is really about. The book highlights a discrepancy between the view of the majority looking in from outside (the fans) versus the profession – the players, managers, agents and WAGs. This got me thinking about our own 'industry' and how the different internal and external players – academics, students, professional services, management, regulators and, increasingly, parents – also have their own take on issues common to them all.
Of course making a link between football and universities is hardly novel: annual league tables being the most obvious parallel, along with commentary comparing the transfer market in star academics with the Premiership in the run up to the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise (RAE), and next year's Research Excellence Framework (REF). What really struck home reading the book, however, was fans' lack of recognition that their game is now a business that just happens to be a sport. In that order. Read more...

Blog Educpros de Pierre Dubois. Réforme du 1er cycle dans le projet de loi Fioraso (version du 15 janvier 2013). Seconde modification introduite dans l’article L 612-3 du Code de l’éducation (page 11). "Chaque lycée ayant une classe préparatoire aux grandes écoles conclut une convention avec un ou plusieurs établissements publics à caractère scientifique, culturel et professionnel. Cette convention prévoit les conditions dans lesquelles les enseignements sont dispensés aux élèves par chacun des deux établissements et les évaluations sont effectuées". 64 chroniques du blog sur les Classes préparatoires aux grandes écoles (CPGE).
Les CPGE partenariales existent déjà, mais c’est du pipeau (chronique du 10 juin 2011, suite à la parution de la circulaire de Patrick Hetzel). Il existe également des prépas dans les universités, mais elles connaissent de nombreuses limites (chronique du 14 mars 2011).
J’écrivais en juin 2011: "Fluidité aussi pour les enseignants; participation croisée d’enseignants aux différentes formations. De qui se moque-t-on? Pourquoi les agrégés de classes préparatoires iraient-ils enseigner en licence à des élèves moins "bons"? Peut-on imaginer que ces agrégés acceptent de gaité de cœur que les enseignants de licence viennent enseigner en CPGE? En route pour la Ronde des agrégés: ceux des CPGE iraient enseigner en licence, et ceux détachés en université iraient enseigner en prépa. Surréaliste! Irréaliste. Les CPGE partenariales, c’est du pipeau!"
Communiqué de Geneviève Fioraso (17 janvier 2013). La Ministre "est convaincue de l’utilité de ces rapprochements [entre CPGE et universités], dans lesquels chacun garde son identité, mais qui, grâce aux échanges, notamment sur la recherche mais aussi sur la pédagogie, établissent des passerelles, au bénéfice de l’intérêt général des étudiants des classes préparatoires comme de l’université. Le partenariat entre classes préparatoires et universités offrira ainsi davantage de droits et de possibilités à chacun des deux systèmes, sans aucune remise en cause de leurs objectifs et de leurs spécificités, qui sont complémentaires". J’ai rarement vu une telle pauvreté d’argumentation de la part d’un Ministre. Suite de l'article...

By Daniel J. Julius, Executive Director, SUNY Levin Institute; Visting Scholar, Center for Studies in Higher Education, UC Berkeley, State University of New York, Levin Institute. Collective Bargaining in Higher Education: The Resolved and Unresolved Questions1966 – 2012.
This presentation will explore the major research issues, the challenges of studying labor management relations in higher education and outcomes of collective bargaining over the last 45 years. In addition to research questions and challenges, the presentation will examine what is known and not known about the impact of unionization on faculty, graduate students and the institution or systems where bargaining has occurred. Data concerning who is unionized as well as institutional and demographic factors associated with unionization, will be explored. The presentation will conclude with a summary of the major issues (organizational, institutional, programmatic) at the bargaining table where organized faculty and graduate students (in land grant institutions) are presently negotiating.

By Andrew Petter. Western democracies are ailing. Polls in many jurisdictions show citizen confidence in political parties and governing institutions has plummeted over the past four decades, while voter turnout in elections in North America and much of Europe has declined by up to 25 per cent over the same period.
Such trends have prompted American scholar Russell Dalton to observe that the most serious challenge to democracy comes not from external or internal enemies, but from citizens “who have grown distrustful of politicians, skeptical about democratic institutions and disillusioned about how the democratic process functions.”
The cure for what the Law Commission of Canada has called a “democratic malaise” must be an enthusiastic re-engagement of the public in the political life of the country. This will not be easy to achieve but, if we are to have hope, universities must play a critical role. Read more...

By Fr. Ranhilio Aquino. The Constitution of the Republic does not provide for State control of higher education.  In fact, control in even its most benign form would be antithetical to a clear constitutional grant of academic freedom the parameters of which are, by now, well established in jurisprudence, both local and foreign.  With good reason then does Fr. Joel Tabora, SJ advance the argument that the law purposely designed the Commission on Higher Education to be a “weak agency” so that there would be no derogation at all of the academic freedom that guarantees the flourishing of universities and colleges in their role of being centers of higher education as well as of research.  In fact the community of scholars and professors that a university is should be as independent as possible for such is the demand of scholarship and of academic pursuits. Read more...