Formation Continue du Supérieur

29 avril 2013

French studies losing ground in university

By Caroline Alphonso. After an 18-year run, the University of Regina is shuttering its francophone studies program. The number of graduates: Zero.
Parents may be clamouring to enroll their children in French studies in the early years, but interest appears to wane among university-age students. Post-secondary institutions in many parts of the country have seen a drop off in applicants, and are either shutting down, scaling back or pausing their French programs.
Thomas Chase, the University of Regina’s provost and vice-president academic, said only one student is currently enrolled in the university’s undergraduate French program; three were registered four years ago. Read more...

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29 avril 2013

Amherst faculty tells edX: drop dead

I love the Amherst faculty’s commitment to educational rather than “edupreneurial” (or edupredatory) values. To be sure, there was the huge issue of institutional mission versus the mission–so far as anyone can figure it out–of these unproven for-profit ventures we call MOOCs:
Some Amherst faculty concerns about edX were specific to Amherst. For instance, faculty asked, are MOOCs, which enroll tens of thousands of students, compatible with Amherst’s mission to provide education in a “purposefully small residential community” and “through close colloquy?”
Then there was the issue of the ill-thought out vision of edX itself, as well as the sheer incompetence on display in edX’s sales approach, compared to the thought that the Amherst faculty had invested. Read more...

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29 avril 2013

What I Hope To Learn By Teaching a MOOC on "History and Future of Higher Ed"

http://hastac.org/files/imagecache/homepage_50/pictures/picture-79-873560aec16bee4b69793f2fa0fbd715.jpg

By Cathy Davidson. If I had a magic wand and could reverse the neoliberal funding trends depriving public state universities of support, of course I would.
If I had a magic wand and could make private universities affordable by the best students, not just the richest, of course I would.
If I had a magic wand and could raise the percentage of students worldwide who have access to higher education, of course I would. To put that wish into perspective, you need to know that, right now, less than 2% of those already pre-selected by excellent test scores in high school to take the college entrance exams are able to attend the technical universities of South Asia. There are similar depressing statistics for many other countries around the world . . .
If I had a magic wand, I would make community college education available to the 450,000+ students currently waitlisted for such colleges in the state of California.
I do not have a magic wand. We are facing an education shortfall of epic proportions. Read more...

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29 avril 2013

U. of Indianapolis Will Close Campus in Greece

The University of Indianapolis is shutting down its campus in Greece. "[E]conomic conditions in Greece have made it very difficult to continue [operations] according to the high standards of the university and the expectations of our accrediting agency," said a statement from the university. The university will continue an M.B.A. program it operates in Greece for students from Saudi Arabia, and plans to "use that financially viable program as a model for developing new programs on a contract basis," the statement added. Read more...

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29 avril 2013

On Amsterdam's Plans to Establish a Third University

By Kris Olds. Editor's note: this guest entry in GlobalHigherEd has been kindly developed by Jurjen van Rees. His entry is a backgrounder to the development of a fascinating new initiative - Amsterdam Metropolitan Solutions - slated to involve both Dutch and foreign universities. This development should be viewed in the context of recent initiatives to establish new applied sciences universities and research centers in New York (most notably Cornell Tech in New York City, which I profiled in February 2012 in 'Unsettling the University-Territory Relationship via Applied Sciences NYC') and Singapore (via the Campus for Research Excellence And Technological Enterprise (CREATE)). For broader context on the Amsterdam city-region, see the OECD Territorial Reviews: Randstad Holland, Netherlands (2007) and OECD/IMHE Reviews of Higher Education in Regional and City Development: Amsterdam (2009). Read more...

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29 avril 2013

Where Tuition is Free

By Elizabeth Redden. In Germany the great experiment with tuition fees is coming to an end. Seven of the 16 states introduced tuition fees after a federal court ruling in 2005 freed them to do so, but one by one they have undone them. The last two states to charge tuition fees, Bavaria and Lower Saxony, are expected to abolish them in the coming months, making Germany an outlier amid a global trend toward the introduction and increase of tuition fees.
Tuition fees in Germany are by an American standard modest -- €1,000, or about $1,300, per year -- but the imposition of them in a country with a tradition of “free” public higher education has proven politically divisive. The more conservative Christian Democratic Union and Free Democratic Party have championed tuition fees, while the leftist Social Democratic and Green Parties have brought about their revocation. The German Rectors’ Conference, the association of universities, supports modest tuition fees, while the student and faculty unions stand opposed. Read more...

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29 avril 2013

'Advantage' for Chinese Applicants?

By Elizabeth Redden. Wake Forest University is launching a new program for Chinese high school students intended to help “bridge the gap” between the Chinese and U.S. educational systems and provide students with "incontrovertible" video evidence of their academic readiness, which Wake Forest will send to college admissions offices on their behalf.
“Our notion was by going to the high schools and providing exposure to Western-style pedagogical practices, we’ll both have a better sense of who’s applying, at least in some cases, and we’ll have a head start on integrating students once they’re here,” said Rogan Kersh, Wake Forest’s provost. Read more...

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29 avril 2013

'Strategic Diversity Leadership'

By Scott Jaschik. College and university leaders talk all the time about their commitment to diversity. And, on many campuses, students and faculty question the depth of that commitment. A new book, Strategic Diversity Leadership (Stylus) considers the steps colleges can take to transform their campuses. The author is Damon A. Williams, vice provost and chief diversity officer at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Williams responded via e-mail to questions about the book. Read more...

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29 avril 2013

MOOCs and the Quality Question

By Ronald Legon. Overnight, MOOCs -- with free tuition for all, attracting unprecedented enrollments reaching into the hundreds of thousands, and the involvement of world-class faculty -- have captured the imagination of the press, public and even legislators looking for ways to expand the availability of higher education at minimal cost.
But thus far little attention has been paid to the quality of MOOCs. Quality in online learning can be defined in many ways: quality of content, quality of design, quality of instructional delivery, and, ultimately, quality of outcomes. Read more...

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29 avril 2013

Liberal Arts and MOOCs

By Tracy Mitrano."MOOCs" are making a big splash in higher education. In some ways they disrupt traditional institutional structures, credit hours, and academic credentials. In other ways, they retain traditional formats such as "sage on the stage," teaching styles, passive learning and notions of "the course." Rather than think about how "MOOCs" will influence liberal arts education, perhaps it is time to flip the question. What does traditional liberal arts education have to offer "MOOCs"? The answer remains the enduring value of education that produces critical thinkers, life-long learners and economically and politically contributing members of society. But in order to accomplish that feat, liberal arts education may have to take a lesson from MOOCs on how to generate excitement for the deployment of technology in service of inter-institutional and even international classrooms, information competency and problem-solving based courses." Read more...

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