Changing Higher Education

Two more, very different, meetings

My friend Joe Duffey keeps sending me announcements about meetings in some vain hope that he can keep me more aware of what is happening in the world.  I feel compelled to comment on two of his recent alerts because they do say a lot about what is going on. One depresses me, the other I find very hopeful.
1. The World Summit on University Ranking- this is the depressing one. 
Readers of this blog know how I feel about university rankings: I dislike them greatly.  I could spend a day listing all of the reasons why, but will just run over a few. First, the idea that the overall quality of universities can be reduced to a single number in silly.  Every great university has some really terrible programs, and many otherwise mediocre institutions have some superb programs.  When trying to rank programs (as the NRC does), one finds that the reputational data are squishy (who really knows very much about the programs at more than a hand full of rival institutions?), and the “harder” data are rather arbitrarily chosen (it can be easily measured).  In the end, the statistical uncertainties of the data leave almost everyone in a statistical tie, but that doesn’t stop anyone from dropping the uncertainties and using the numbers as absolute. 

Because research data are easier to obtain than teaching data, rankings focus on the research.   This effective devaluing of teaching and learning in our self analyses is not healthy, and at some point will lead to difficulties in our relations with the societies that support us.

Whatever data are used, some person then must decide how to weight different inputs in order to add it up to a definition of  the best university.  Obviously, however, there is absolutely no unique way to combine the data.  One way is arguably as good as another.  This does not stop anyone either.  In fact,  the rankers like this aspect, since it means that an almost endless number of rankings can be published, each leading to a happy financial or reputational ending for someone.

Rankings are, of course, a celebration of the status quo.  Consequently, they punish institutions that are trying to respond innovatively to the changing world.   This would be of little importance if so many governing boards and presidents were not focused on “improving their rankings”.  Thus badly needed innovation - including cost cutting innovation - becomes even more difficult to carry out.

Finally, when making “world” rankings, most often the criteria are based on venerable Western universities.  Why? Why should looking like Harvard be a good idea in many countries of the world?

So overall, I think we can all be quite concerned that we now have an International Rankings Expert Group.  They are producing a product that by definition is flawed, and serves almost no good purpose.

2.The Global Higher Education Forum 2009-  this is the hopeful one.
This is almost the anti-meeting to the one described above;

The Global Higher Education Forum (GHEF) brings together scholars, policy makers, researchers, academics and administrators to reflect, analyse, discuss and debate on a wide variety of issues pertaining to global higher education in a south-south context. In particular, GHEF2009 will focus on the theme of Global Higher Education, seeking to ponder and reflect on the benefits and challenges and at the same time, envision the way forward for emerging and expanding, rather than for established, higher education systems.

This is a group that actually wants to think about alternative approaches to those which are celebrated above- approaches that may be enormously more valuable for the countries involved. As pointed out in the Background and Rational of the meeting:

In view of the many similar initiatives by different regions and groups to promote the development of higher education through a common platform (which is increasingly biased towards European/American models), the deliberation on the practicality and appropriateness of Asian, Latin American and African countries following the same pathway is timely. The current global economic meltdown presents another interesting backdrop and context to analyse and deliberate on the suitability of European/American models for expanding and emerging higher education systems in Asia, Latin America and Africa.

There is a wonderful article in GlobalHigherEducation written by two members of the organizing committee, Morshidi Sirat and Ooi Poh Ling, describing the goals of this forum. We should all wish them success.

Bologna finally comes to the US

Thanks to the Lumina Foundation, an exciting educational experiment is underway. InsideHigherEd reports that Lumina is leading a US project that applies the  “Tuning” approach of the Bologna process to  several different undergraduate majors.   Numerous higher education institutions of differing size and mission in Utah, Indiana, and Minnesota are participating. 

The Bologna process, overall, tries to bring some consistency to the meaning of degrees around the Bologna region in order to facilitate movement of students around the region, and acceptance of degrees by employers (see The Bologna process - a significant step in the modularization of higher education, Sept 12, 2008). At the same time, the process does not seek to challenge the differences in approach and viewpoint that characterize the various member states. Thus, there is agreement on the intellectual capacities that should describe someone who has attained a degree of a certain level, but no limitations on the approach that got the student to that point.   Clifford Adelman has just published another detailed and very insightful report on the process,  The Bologna Process for U.S. Eyes: Re-learning Higher Education in the Age of Convergence. Highly recommended.

The Tuning approach is the discipline specific part of this process. The approach seeks to create guidelines that faculty can use as they develop statements of expectations for such things as learning outcomes and  levels of learning for individual disciplinary degrees.  The process involves surveys of graduates, employers, and academics to get a clear picture of the learning outcomes that should be expected of specific disciplinary degree programs in the 21st century.  The process has moved along well in Europe, and has led to the formation of a Latin American Tuning Process that now involves institutions in about 18 Latin American countries.  High time the US joined the world and experimented with the approach! 

It is disappointing, but no surprise, that InsiderHigherEd reports that Cary Nelson, president of the American Association of University Professors, is concerned that all of this could provide a threat “academic freedom”.  This is the usual argument advanced to derail attempts to define desired learning outcomes or to measure them. However, at one level, Nelson is certainly correct.  If faculty do not participate fully and creatively in helping to develop appropriate and meaningful statements of desired learning outcomes, someone else will eventually impose standards - and those externally  imposed standards quite possibly will provide a threat to academic freedom. 

Economic value of international students: Australia

An important issue when thinking of national policies toward globalization of higher education is, quite simply, whether such globalization can provide a positive impact on the economy.  For example, NAFSA estimates that in 2007-2008, international students contributed $15.54B to the US economy. There are, however, many countries that have more actively reached out to international students than has the US.  How have their efforts translated into economic benefits?

Kris Olds at  GlobalHigherEd.com has several posts that look into different aspects of that question.  A recent post looks at recent data on the economic impact on Australia of international students.  The data comes from a report entitled The Australian Education Sector and the Economic Contribution of International Students.  The report shows that the economic impact of international students is very significant, making education the third largest export category earner for Australia.  Olds provides an overview and brief analysis of the data, and discusses the origins of the report itself. 

I have only skimmed the report, but it appears that the economic impact analysis looks only at international students coming to Australia.  The economic impact of the international students being taught at offshore sites of Australian universities is not considered, although this is clearly important for a number of Australian universities.  I also found Table 5-7, which looks at the number of international students who were granted visas to stay in Australia after study to be very interesting. 

The globalization of American higher education: approaching the tipping point

I was honored recently to be invited by the Regents Professors Group at Oklahoma State University to give a talk on globalization of higher education.  The title of this post was the title of that talk.    I had a great visit, and learned a lot about some very exciting things going on at OSU.  I thank Ramesh Sharda, Chair of the Group, for inviting me, and John Mowen, past Chair of the Group, for taking such good care of me on my visit. 

The presentation was videotaped by the Regents Professors Group, and can be found here.

Supply chains, revisited

In my musings on possible ways in which higher education might globalize, I have often referred to the modularization process that has been at the core of much of the globalization of industry. A key component of this process has been to turn from vertical integration of companies to a focus on core competencies with an evolved supply chain.   A recent article on Economist.com entitled Moving on up: Is the recession heralding a return to Henry Ford’s model? looks at how these supply chains have held up during the current economic downturn. Turns out many of these supply chains have had a lot of troubles as partners were unable to cope with the economic problems and went out of business.  This is leading some to yearn for the good old days of vertical integration.  The article reminds us of multiple reasons why vertical integration is not well suited for today’s world, but wisely rules nothing out in today’s unsettled conditions.

Most interestingly, the article points out that there is a “third way” to approach this problem:

A company can gain some of the benefits of vertical integration without full ownership. Consider Toyota, a motor company that has been a byword for decent management in a way that General Motors has not been. Toyota rigorously screens its suppliers for quality and financial health, and then spends time and money to ensure their efficiency and survival, sometimes taking minority stakes.In the 1980s, when Toyota chose Johnson Controls to supply seats, it blocked the supplier from expanding its facility, fearing that the additional cost would harm Johnson's profits and effectiveness. Instead, Toyota’s engineers worked with Johnson to streamline production, rearrange the factory floor, and cut inventories, ultimately showing that expansion wasn’t needed after all.

This approach creates:

a supply chain with the stability and efficiency of vertical integration but with some of the flexibility of looser networks of suppliers. The approach is also far cheaper than the traditional vertical method of owning suppliers outright, a virtue at a time when cash and credit are rare.

I will need to reflect a bit in order to see how this information might fit into my thoughts about the future of globalization of higher education. At a minimum, however, It provides a reminder that, in searching for optimal modularization, it is important to look at possible reasons that some of the partners might fail to perform.  Working with them in advance to strengthen their weak points may be in everyone's interest.  

Columbia goes global following a different track

Columbia University today announced the opening of several global research centers:

In a concerted effort to deepen its already extensive global perspective, the University is establishing Columbia Global Centers in Beijing, China and Amman, Jordan. They are the first of what the University plans as a network of centers around the world to promote and facilitate international collaborations, new research projects, academic programming and study abroad, enhancing Columbia’s historical commitment to global scholarship... ..
Columbia Global Centers will provide flexible regional hubs for a wide range of activities and resources intended to enhance the quality of research and learning at the University and around the world. The goal is to establish a network of regional centers in international capitals to collaboratively address complex global challenges by bringing together scholars, students, public officials, private enterprise, and innovators from a broad range of fields.

This is a very exciting new approach to globalization for higher education.  I discussed a very similar approach in an earlier post Modularity in university higher education: Research, June 16, 2006. It builds on the understanding that “optimization” of research and teaching in a globalizing world involves putting together the most effective teams, using the best researchers around the world.  Regional centers provide an anchor that give the teams stability and breadth beyond that which can be achieved with typical multi-investigator projects.  A fascinating - and overdue - experiment!

Losing the world’s best and brightest: America’s new immigrant entrepreneurs, Part IV

The title of this new report from the Kaufman Foundation tells you a lot about its conclusions.  The authors, Vivek Wadhwa, AnnaLee Saxenian, Richard Freeman, and Alex Salkever used a Facebook based approach to interview over a thousand foreign national students at US institutions of higher education.  The report does not claim to be definitive in any way: it was not designed with random choice of interviewees, does not have a longitudinal component, etc.  However, it does make some very important points that will probably resonate with many of us who come into contact with international students on a regular basis.

The title also lets you know that this is part of a Kaufman Foundation series looking at immigrant entrepreneurship in the US.  As stated in the press release for this report:

Immigrants have contributed disproportionately in the most dynamic part of the U.S. economy—the high-tech sector—co-founding firms such as Google, Intel, eBay and Yahoo. In addition, immigrant inventors contributed to more than a quarter of U.S. global patent applications. Immigrant-founded U.S.-based companies employed 450,000 workers and generated $52 billion in revenue in 2006.

Many of these immigrant entrepreneurs arrived in this country as students, were trained at US institutions of higher education, and stayed here to follow their dreams.  Thus, the future plans and aspirations of  members of the current generation of international students are likely to have important implications for the health of the US economy in the future.  This report has good news and bad news on that front.

Failed experiments in offshore campuses

Kris Olds has a very nice post in GlobalHigherEd looking at recent closings of offshore campuses by US universities. He makes some quite pertinent points about the importance of learning -collectively- from these experiments.  Highly recommended

What now for globalization?

The future of capitalism is here, and it is not what any of us expected.

Lowell Bryan and Diana Farrell in  the McKinsey Quarterly

                                                                                        

I have written often in these posts about the effects of globalization and the rise of the market state on higher education.  Given the economic events of the past year, some recalibration of understanding of  these forces is obviously in order.  This post describes some of my immediate thoughts, starting with a re-visitation of the work of Philip Bobbitt that underpins the arguments made in several of my previous posts.

In his influential 2002 book, The Shield of Achilles, Philip Bobbitt described the global transition from a nation-state form of organization (in which the state seeks to provide for the welfare of its citizens) to that of a market state (in which the state seeks to maximize the opportunity of its citizens). This transition is being driven by large global forces that include technology, changing demographics, and the rise of global marketplaces for goods, knowledge, and currencies.  He suggested that there are three models that define the main characteristics of the new market state, and that states will eventually have to make decisions that will lead them primarily towards one or the other of these. The three models are (p 283)

(1) a mercantile state–i.e. one that endeavors to improve its relative positions vis-a-vis all other states by competitive means, or (2) an entrepreneurial state, one that attempts to improve its absolute positions while mitigating the competitive values of the market through cooperative means, or (3) an managerial market-state, one that tries to maximize its position both absolutely and relatively by regional, formal means (trading blocks, etc.). 

Each of these different models has its own strengths and weaknesses and strategic implications. The Entrepreneurial Market-State is rather libertarian, looking for minimal state intervention in the economy and the private lives of citizens. “Privatized health care, housing, pensions, and education, as well as low taxes and low welfare benefits all characterize such states.” (p671). The US fits into this category.  The Mercantile Market –State “relies upon a strong central government to protect national industries, subsidize crucial research and development, and steer certain important enterprises toward success.”   “Opportunities available to the consumer…are sacrificed to the long-term opportunities of the society.”  In addition, “These societies are able to maintain social cohesion...in part because income disparities are suppressed, variations in take-home pay between manufacturing workers and service workers are rationalized, and elaborate social welfare subsidy systems, including public housing and access to education, are put in place…” (all p.671) Ensuring social stability might be said to be the goal of the Mercantile Market-State.  Many Asian economies fall into this category. Finally, there is the Managerial Market-State. This form is characterized by “free and open markets within a regional trading framework, a government that provides a social safety neat and manages a stringent monetary policy, and a socially cohesive society.”(p.672) “Strong national unions negotiate contracts across whole sectors of the economy rather than by individual company or factory.” Assuring social equality is one of the major goals of this form. Much of Europe falls into this category.  Bobbitt predicts strong competition (or perhaps conflict) between these different forms of market state as each seeks to become the constitutional archetype of the market-state.

Transatlantic joint and double degree programs

A fascinating report Joint and Double Degree Programs in the Transatlantic Context has just been published by the Institute of International Education and the Freie Universitat Berlin .  It describes the results of a survey of American and European universities looking at the rapidly increasing phenomenon of transatlantic joint and double degree programs. The survey was not meant to be representative of activity in an absolute sense (only 180 institutions participated), but rather to show trends and developments.
The report notes:

One of the more prominent recent developments involves the emergence of transatlantic degree programs, such as dual diplomas, joint degrees, consortia and other forms of curriculum cooperation arrangements. Among European countries the introduction of joint and double degree programs has long been a vital part of internationalization strategies in higher education, helping to create stronger links and flourishing institutional partnerships,as well as preparing students for a global workplace. In the North American context, such programs have been until recently a less common feature of internationalization strategies for higher education institutions. However, the interest in curriculum cooperation is gaining momentum not only in the U.S. but in most countries around the world. In an increasingly global and competitive higher education market, collaborative programs, or “codesharing” as airlines would call it, can offer a set of advantages and are an important asset in the struggle
for attracting the best and the brightest.

The report also describes another troublesome aspect of American higher education that such programs may help correct:

Another challenge to transatlantic academic exchange is the increasing predominance of short-term study abroad programs in the U.S. While Europe still remains the leading destination for U.S. students who study abroad, the length of study abroad sojourns has declined dramatically in the past decade. Currently, only 6% of all U.S. students who study abroad, spend a full academic year in the host country, according to IIE’s Open Doors Report. The majority of study abroad programs are short-term programs of eight weeks or less, which may have only limited impact on the development of intercultural skills and foreign language immersion. Medium-term and long-term study abroad sojourns, especially if conducted in a structured way in cooperation with local partner institutions and including exposure to local student body and faculty, hold far greater opportunities in this respect.

Among the many  findings are that double degrees are much more common than joint degrees, but that European institutions offer about twice as many joint degrees as do American institutions.  The US institutions focus on undergraduate joint and double degrees, the European institutions on graduate programs.  The most common programs are in business and engineering.   The most common partners for European institutions are US institutions and other European Universities, but there are a significant number of partnerships with Latin American and Asian institutions as well. For the US institutions, European partnerships are the most common, and Asian partnerships play a somewhat more important role than is the case with European universities. 

At several points, the report indicates the importance of the Bologna process (see The Bologna process- a significant step in the modularization of higher education , Sept 12, 2008) in stimulating such programs in Europe. One very interesting sentence caught my eye:

Built on consecutive, intertwined modules, European BA programs are beginning to find new ways of integrating study abroad components into the curriculum.

Another competitive aspect of Bologna that we in the US should carefully note!