For my flight to the United States I took some news articles that might be of interest and on which I might post later on. Here’s a list of what I thought might be worthwile:
An article on the risks that Australian universities are taking by focusing so (too?) heavily on the international student market. Universities are risking their academic reputation by rushing into dubious offshore ventures and are leaving themselves financially exposed as the boom in overseas students tapers off. A report from NSW Auditor-General Bob Sendt finds universities have become too reliant on overseas students and need to find other sources of revenue:
- Foreign risks for universities (The Australian)
And in Europe, the Commission recently came up with some recommendations on how to improve higher education and make it more responsive. Or in other words, the present some thoughts on:
Although the Commission does not have any substantial authority in the field of higher education, they more and more try to incorporate higher ed. in their Lisbon Strategy. Often, they prefer to do that by using the power of exaggeration. The European Commissioner for Education has a stark warning:
- Get a grip or be ‘beautiful museums’ (Times HE Supplement / subscription)
But the universities themselves have some toughts about this issue as well. The League of European Research Universities (Leru), said: “We welcome the recent EU acknowledgement that universities play a key role in society, but there must be much more emphasis on the diversity of universities, and funding must be based on the excellence of their particular outputs.” Read about it here:
- Europe’s top 20 demand action (Times HE Supplement / subscription)
And then on a more general topic.. While global competition intensifies, governments devise strategies to protect jobs, industries and reputation. The Yale Center for the Study of Globalization analyzes contrasting approaches to managing globalization that have emerged in Europe, one from France and the other from Denmark.
But of course there’s also a fully loaded iPod [lots of songs and some podcasts, among which the podcasts of the ongoing Key Concepts Public Lecture Series of the Research Institute of the Humanities and Social Sciences of the University of Sydney], and a good book. Hopefully that’s enough to get me from SYD, over the ocean to SFO and via ORD to RDU.