Monday 26 January 2009

University World News 0060 - 26th January 2009


NEWS: Our correspondents worldwide report

GLOBAL: Ban sex between lecturers and students?
Paul Rigg
When Professor Istvan Pogany, 57, began a consensual relationship with one of his students at Britain’s University of Warwick, he did what many would consider ‘good practice’ and informed his line manager. But the student, who is in her 30s, then fell pregnant and her subsequent anguished decision to have an abortion led to lurid headlines that raised the question again whether intimate relationships between academics and students should be more strongly discouraged, or even prohibited.

US-INDIA: Boosting private-public partnerships
Geoff Maslen
A high-powered taskforce set up by the US Asia Society to expand interactions between India and the new Obama administration has called for the creation of education partnerships between the two nations to cope with India’s burgeoning higher education and secondary school populations. In a new report*, the taskforce says the training requirements for India’s large population exceed current capacity, “a challenge uniquely suited for linkages with US institutions”.

INDONESIA: Students swindled and stranded
David Jardine
A scandal involving 49 Indonesian students who sought places in Egypt’s prestigious Al-Azhar University has been revealed. Instead of enrolling in the Cairo university, the students ended up in Malaysia where 15 were discovered doing odd jobs to support themselves.

BANGLADESH: Private universities meet demand
Mahdin Mahboob
The system of private universities is a relatively new concept in Bangladesh. Because of the ever-growing demand for education at the university level, and the fact that existing public universities could not meet the need, the government passed the Private Universities Act in 1992. Starting with a handful, the number of private universities has grown rapidly and stands at 54 to date, compared with 21 public universities.

UK: Reskilling and upskilling
Diane Spencer
The higher education sector should play a greater part in the government’s agenda of improving skills of the workforce, says a new report by a parliamentary select committee. MPs looked at the review of leading businessman Lord Leitch, published in 2006, which was based on depressing statistics revealing the level of skills among the UK working population.

GLOBAL: New African research resource
A new online search portal called the HERANA Gateway provides access to the latest research on African higher education. Using Google technology, the Gateway returns focused search results from more than 15 sites worldwide – including University World News and the Centre for Higher Education Transformation in South Africa – making it one of the most
spec ialised resources of its kind.

ZIMBABWE: Universities demand US dollars
Clemence Manyukwe
Lecturers and their universities are demanding payment in foreign currency, with the institutions charging dollar tuition fees of US$700 and $1,500 per semester, as inflation in the crisis-torn southern African country plays havoc with the local currency and the education and health sectors collapse. Students are not sure whether they will get their results after lecturers declined to mark examination scripts, citing poor salaries and working conditions.

NIGERIA: Government in court over ruling councils
Tunde Fatunde
The Academic Staff Union of Universities, the ASUU, has dragged the N igerian government before the Federal High Court, challenging as illegal President Shehu Musa Yar’Adua’s failure to reconstitute the governing councils of federal universities. All councils were dissolved in 2007 and the lack of the decision-making bodies has hampered university operations. The court action has jolted the presidency which claims to champion the rule of law.

UGANDA: Students protest ‘discriminatory’ fees
Kayiira Kizito
Late last year, Kenyan students enrolled at Makerere University, Uganda’s most famous institution, protested against ‘discriminatory’ foreign student fees and other charges. As with many other universities around the world, Makerere charges differential rates for domestic and international students, and those from East Africa pay around 1.5 times the local rate.

NEWSBRIEFS

PHILIPPINES: Trikes spread telecommunications
Five young Filipino graduates are building the country’s first self-contained and wireless-enabled mobile telecentres using the national mode of transport – the three-wheeled motorcycle called a Trike.

FRANCE: Inter-university information service
Jane Marshall
Nearly 150 librarians from 14 Parisian university libraries have banded together to open Rue des facs, an online documentary information service for students and academics. They can send in questions – in French – and should receive a reply by email within three days.

MALAWI: Plans for a Muslim university
Malawi’s former President, Bakili Muluzi, is planning to open a Muslim university. The institution will join other church-run universities – the Catholic University and Livingstone University (which is run by the Presbyterian Church) – to outnumber Malawi’s two public institutions, the University of Malawi and Mzuzu University.

ZAMBIA: University to charge ‘economic’ fees
The University of Zambia will begin charging ‘economic’ fees this year after submitting its proposals to the government. Vice-chancellor Professor Steven Simukanga said that although the government wanted affordable student fees, this was not possible because government grants were inadequate.

SCIENCE SCENE

GLOBAL: Science or famine – crisis looms
Science-based solutions will be needed to avoid or at least mitigate a looming world food crisis that threatens to reduce nations to a “survival of the fittest” situation, a new report warns.

AUSTRALIA: Bacterium in fight against dengue fever
The painstaking injection by hand of 10,000 mosquito embryos – one-by-one – has led to a breakthrough in the fight against dengue fever by Australian researchers.

UK: Ancient chemical warfare alleged
Chemical warfare has long been used in human conflict. Now researchers believe they have found the oldest archaeological evidence of the practice – from Roman times.

FEATURE

GREECE: New people – old policies
Makki Marseilles
Forty-two-year-old Aris Spiliotopoulos was appointed Education Secretary in a recent government reshuffle carried out by Premier Kostas Karamanlis to boost the diminishing fortunes of his government. His party is now trailing 3-5 percentage points in the opinion polls behind the Opposition for the first time since 2003.

HE RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY

AFRICA: Research collaborations must be fair and equal
Dr Damtew Teferra
Research collaborations with African institutions must be equal, fair and meaningful. Africa's capacity for research and creating knowledge has always been the most marginalised and least competitive in the world.
Republished from SciDevNet

UK: Journal of Applied Research in Higher Education
A new online, peer-reviewed Journal of Applied Research in Higher Education, based at the University of Glamorgan, has been launched aimed at promoting “improved practice by encouraging informed debate into pedagogic and related matters in higher education”.

U-SAY

From Giles Pickford
Reading the ongoing debate about big research versus small universities, I sometimes wonder if the truth is that Gavin Moodie and Simon Marginson are both right, while appearing to be in furious disagreement.

UNI-LATERAL: Off-beat university stories

NEW ZEALAND: Vodka and exercise – the 60-hour hangover
John Gerritsen
New Zealand researchers have been mixing drinks at the gym in the name of science. Their experiment? To find out just how much impact post-match consumption of alcohol has on recovery from exercise.
UK: Rabbit run
This is a story that will generate shivers of horror or hoots of laughter among the inhabitants of rural Australia who are constantly engaged in a war against these little furry creatures. Rabbit owners in Bristol, south-west England, have been invited by Bristol University to help keep their animals healthy by bringing them for a free health check at the UK's first dedicated rabbit-only clinic.
Full report on the University World News site


FACEBOOK

The Facebook group of University World News is the fastest growing in higher education worldwide. More than 570 readers have joined. Sign up to the University World News Facebook group to meet and communicate directly with academics and researchers informed by the world’s first truly global higher education publication. Click on the link below to visit and join the group.

WORLD ROUND-UP

BANGLADESH: Government moves to quell campus violence
The newly installed Sheikh Hasina government has deployed the police to quell campus violence after Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL) activists snapped telephone lines of the Chittagong University vice-chancellor’s office and drove out the deputy registrar, according to Thandian News.

CHINA: Boom in exam cheats battling for top jobs
Growing competition for jobs in the Chinese civil service appears to have produced a boom in dishonesty, with about 1,000 cheats caught in the national entrance exams this year, reports Tania Branigan for The Guardian. Hundreds of thousands of unemployed graduates seek safe berths in government offices, but their desperation to succeed has led to the highest level of cheating on record, according to the China Daily newspaper.

US: Scientific climate changing as Obama takes office
The politics of science, which has been storm-tossed for the past eight years, heads for uncharted waters with the inauguration of Barack Obama, writes Dan Vergano for USA Today. The Bush administration has fought a long battle with the nation's scientific community over funding and philosophy, and great divides have formed over such issues as global warming and stem cell research. Scientists are hopeful that Obama, who has called for increased research spending, will bring a new dawn. But how realistic are their hopes? And can the nation afford to make them a reality?

US: Mixing partying and politics
It was primarily a night for celebration, as hundreds of supporters of historically black colleges and universities gathered at the National Postal Museum on the eve of President-elect Barack Obama’s inauguration to mark a historic moment, reports Inside Higher Ed. But it would not have been a Washington event if the revellers, as they danced and sipped on champagne, had not taken significant time to engage in the city’s true pastime: politicking. Chief among their wishes, black college leaders urged Obama to prioritise their institutions in his forthcoming economic stimulus package.

US: Fallout from the auto industry collapse
In better times, Detroit’s Big Three automakers signed multi-million dollar corporate training contracts with local community colleges to offer customised programmes for their employees, writes David Moltz in Inside Higher Ed. They offered these same employees and their dependents tuition assistance grants to further their education as they saw fit. And in better times, the state’s budget also supported community colleges at healthy levels. Now, with the auto industry and the state on the critical list, community colleges are being hit hard.

UK: The University of Europe: accessible to all
Universities in Europe are looking to embrace a new form of learning, called open content, which could blow away the division between university students and the rest of the population, writes Mandy Garner in The Guardian. In the UK, the Joint Information Systems Committee (Jisc) and the Higher Education Academy are launching a £5.7 million (US$7.9 million) pilot scheme to investigate the impact of open content and to look at issues of how to contextualise existing online material so anyone can make sense of it. Several European academics are already experimenting and the European Commission has expressed interest.

UK: Dawn of the cyberstudent
In a single week, the Open University records about two million downloads from its presence on iTunes U, a source of higher education podcasts and videos freely available on the web, writes Harriet Swain in The Guardian. About 87% of these downloads are from outside the UK. “I’m betting most of them have been downloaded by US students studying at American universities,” says Peter Scott, director of the Open University Knowledge Media Institute.

UK: Cambridge turns 800
Thousands of people have taken part in global celebrations marking the 800th anniversary of Cambridge University, reports BBC News. A specially-commissioned light show charting the university’s history kicked off the celebrations, which tied in with the start of a new term. Church bell-ringers around the world also simultaneously played a new piece composed for the occasion.

UK: RAE reveals cracks in university structure
The controversy about how research funding will be distributed between universities following the Research Assessment Exercise has exposed a basic problem in the way UK higher education system is organised, argues Luke Georghiou, professor of science and technology policy and management at the University of Manchester’s business school, in The Guardian.

GAZA: Science lab blown to bits
Three young medical students were snapping photographs of a scene of devastation last Monday: five stories of mint-green, concrete rubble that until Israel’s war with Hamas began had been their science lab, reports The New York Times.

ISRAEL: Study on hold as students called up
As Gil Levkovitch stared at a glowing TV screen showing Israeli ground forces moving into the Gaza Strip, he worried that he was going to get the call. At 10pm his phone rang. After a brief conversation, he began to gather his things. At 6am the next morning, he left his home. His studies at Tel Aviv University would be put on hold. He was on his way to fight a war, writes Vadim Lavrusik in the Minnesota Daily.

UK: Gaza protests spread to eight English universities
As student protests over the bombing of Gaza spread to eight universities across England last week, London School of Economics director Sir Howard Davies issued a joint statement with student protesters saying he understood their concerns and backing a fundraising drive for scholarships for Palestinians, reports The Guardian. There has also been student action at Oxford, Warwick, King’s College London, the School of Oriental and African Studies, Birmingham, Ess ex and Suss ex.

UGANDA: Overhaul of Makerere approved
Cabinet has paved the way for the complete overhaul of the administrative, financial and management structures of Makerere University, following the approval of wide-ranging recommendations by a Visitation Committee appointed by President Yoweri Museveni, writes Richard Wanambwa in The Citizen.

SOUTH AFRICA: Brain-gain battle between universities
The University of the Witwatersrand’s illustrious education policy unit is considering relocating lock, stock and barrel to the University of Johannesburg (UJ), reports the Mail & Guardian. UJ has been manoeuvring strongly to win a coveted place among the country’s top five universities, partly by beefing up its research capacity.

ETHIOPIA: Postgraduates to plug academic shortage
The Ministry of Education has started recruiting self-sponsored postgraduate students to work as assistant lecturers in Ethiopia’s 21 public universities, reports Addis Fortune. Public universities, especially those out of the capital, are faced with an acute shortage of academic staff.

MALTA: Record numbers in higher education
The number of 19-year-old students participating in higher education in Malta reached an all-time high last year with more than half furthering their studies, a report has shown, according to the Times of Malta. The proportion of 19-year-olds in post secondary and tertiary education increased from 31% in 1999 to 55% last year.

SINGAPORE: Big boost for research scholars
The government will put aside S$48 million (US$1.5 million) to fund up to 100 research scholars from two local universities to carry out work at the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology, SMART, reports the Straits Times. The fund complements S$1 billion given in 2006 to set up new research centres and fill them with the top global research minds over the next five years.

Tuesday 20 January 2009

University World News 0059 - 19th January 2009

THIS WEEK'S SPECIAL REPORT: Research hot spots

This week, University World News takes a look at the world map with an eye for a different kind of topography. We have identified the seemingly magnetic forces that draw researchers to different areas of the globe. Clusters of academics gather in areas that are rich in the stocks of their trade. Some visit and some settle, making those areas, in turn, rich with researchers.

If you’re in the South Pacific, you just might spot a whale researcher more easily than you would a beluga. Other researchers are roaming across Eastern Europe, trying to better understand the Roma of that region. Greece is at the centre of early understanding of civilisation and the ancient country is still in ruins, in a good way, especially for archaeologists. South Africa has proven to be rich in clear night skies, allowing for its international observatory to draw researchers from many countries with dire light pollution, all now gazing upward in awe.

Our correspondents bring you those stories and, as a bonus, we have a from-the-field report by an inspired undergraduate at a university research station in Barbados, plus we’ve gathered together some links to Northern research that will give you a cool take on the Arctic.

Philip Fine

ARCTIC: Northern lights a research beacon
Philip Fine
Back in the 17th century, Henry Hudson was one of the first to head north because of his fascination with the Arctic. In the early 21st century, the North still holds wonder for researchers from scores of countries. For this special on research hot spots, University World News offers a cross-section of links to the goings-on of Northern researchers: from a comprehensive report card on the North to impressions of some artists hitching a ride on a research vessel. There are also links to a consortium of arctic universities, a floating German laboratory of international researchers, a climate-change research clearinghouse, a site for social scientists interested in the North, and a report on Inuit observations.
Full report on the University World News site

UK: Roma researchers travel Gypsy-like
Diane Spencer
The persecuted, reviled and once forgotten Roma people are increasingly the subject of academic interest and research. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the social group known as the Gypsies has become a respectable academic field, according to Dr Michael Stewart, a social anthropologist from University College London. “When I began studying Roma issues in Hungary in 1982, there were three of us, now there are around 70 researchers with about 50 young people across Europe doing their doctoral theses on Roma research.”
Full report on the University World News site

SOUTH AFRICA: Star-gazing in Sutherland
Karen MacGregor
Sutherland, a tiny town with fewer than 2,000 people in the Karoo semi-desert of northern South Africa, seems an unlikely research hot spot. But the town’s far-flung location in an unpopulated, high-altitude, low rainfall dark area makes it one of the best places on earth to observe the universe. Astronomers from around the world are studying the stars through the Southern African Large Telescope, SALT, the southern hemisphere’s giant optical telescope.
Full report on the University World News site

NEW ZEALAND: Having a whale of a time
John Gerritsen
Off the east coast of New Zealand's South Island, a massive sperm whale surfaces, turns turtle and slams its tail flukes into the water. Nearby, a boatload of tourists thrills to the sight. Closer to shore, an encounter with dolphins leaves a group of wet-suited humans breathless on two counts – the physical effort of repeated duck-diving to attract the creatures and the thrill of the dolphins' high-jumping acrobatics. It's all part of a southern hemisphere summer in New Zealand and, as well as attracting thousands of tourists from around the world, such sights also attract scientists.
Full report on the University World News site

BARBADOS: Garden brings botany research alive
Charlotte Rancourt
As far back as I can remember, I have been curious about things like how coconut trees could reproduce in a salty soil or how indigenous people could treat ailments while being kilometres from the nearest hospital. Through my research, I have been trying to link the ancient knowledge of folk medicine used by the Bajans (the indigenous people of Barbados) with the scientific literature on medication derived from the very same plants used in their society.
Full report on the University World News site

GREECE: Digging up dirt and finding more ruins
Makki Marseilles
Greece is a country full of ruins. The story goes that wherever you dig you are more than likely to hit on an ancient site. In Athens, there are currently more than 15 foreign archaeological schools from countries all over the globe conducting archaeological activities and research under licence from the Greek authorities. Greece may be a nightmare for modern developers but for many researchers it provides an unbroken chain back to the beginning of our human existence.
Full report on the University World News site

NEWS: Our correspondents worldwide report

US: Obama raises hopes in higher education
This week’s inauguration of a new American president has created widespread hope on campuses across the nation that Barack Obama will act quickly to tackle the deepening recession. Meantime, colleges and universities have been forced to act to boost their student-aid programmes to help middle-income families caught unexpectedly in the grim economic downturn.
Full report on the University World News site

UK-RUSSIA: Pioneers plan to cross British bridge
Nick Holdsworth
Former managers of an international higher education partnership programme, pioneered by the British Council in Russia before a crisis in diplomatic relations sharply curtailed its activities, want to continue developing wider educational benefits from the scheme.
Full report on the University World News site

GERMANY: Eleventh-hour rescue package
Michael Gardner
Germany’s oldest private university, Witten-Herdecke, has managed to narrowly survive a financial crisis. With new bids from private investors, it now looks as if the institution, situated in the Land of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), will also receive the government subsidy it has to rely on.
Full report on the University World News site

AUSTRALIA: Whose interests should universities serve?
Gavin Moodie
Simon Margionson’s commentary last week, AUSTRALIA: Bradley: a short-term political patch-up, raises the question of whose interests one wants higher education to serve.
Full report on the University World News site

GREECE: Two weeks that shook universities
Makki Marseilles
Greek universities, not for the first time, became the victims of violence and destruction during the two week-long riots last month which devastated Athens as well as other provincial towns and sparked protests and demonstrations.
Full report on the University World News site

NEWSBRIEFS

RUSSIA: UWN correspondent takes on new role
University World News Moscow correspondent Nick Holdsworth leaps into print in another guise this month with the international release of the memoirs of a Russian war veteran who witnessed the World War II conflict on the Eastern Front – from both sides as a combatant.
Full report on the University World News site

UK: Internships to the rescue
Diane Spencer
Ministers have proposed measures to help the class of 2009 graduates into work as they will face a tough battle ahead for jobs in the economic downturn. Four leading companies including Microsoft and Barclays Bank have signed up to an internship scheme where graduates work at reduced rates for up to three months to gain experience.
Full report on the University World News site

US: Religious-secular divide
The New School in New York City is holding a conference on 5-6 March on the theme: The religious-secular divide: The US Case. This will be the 20th conference in the Social Research series dedicated to enhancing public understanding in an engaging, multi-disciplinary discussion.
Full report on the University World News site

ACADEMIC FREEDOM

ISRAEL-PALESTINE: Islamic University in Gaza attacked
Jonathan Travis
The Islamic University in Gaza, an independent Palestinian university established in 1978, has been bombed by Israeli warplanes. The attack took place on 28 December and while the scale of the damage is still not known, reports suggest that a science laboratory was targeted. Fortunately, the university was evacuated before the Israeli assault began and there were no casualties.
Full report on the University World News site

BUSINESS

EUROPE: Universities must fight for ‘stimulus’ cash
Keith Nuthall
Higher education and research institutions will have to fight to secure the additional public spending being made available in Europe this year, as politicians loosen their purse strings to head off an economic depression.
Full report on the University World News site

GLOBAL: Belfast to teach Indians entrepreneurship
Alan Osborn
An expert on entrepreneurship from Queen’s University in Belfast, Northern Ireland, is to advise business leaders, politicians and academics in West Bengal on how this Indian state can improve its economic performance with the support of higher education. David Gibson, a senior teaching fellow in entrepreneurship in Queen’s management school, addressed a conference in Kolkata last week about creating an “entrepreneurial mindset” and developing ways of incorporating entrepreneurship into the wider curriculum
Full report on the University World News site

AUSTRALIA: Textiles could make hybrid cars more reliable
Geoff Maslen
Researchers at Monash University in Melbourne have revolutionised the design of a fuel cell that could make hybrid cars more reliable and cheaper to build. Goretex is the high-tech clothing material worn by mountaineers and polar adventurers but now the Monash scientists have made a fuel cell with it that could cut the world’s output of carbon dioxide from cars.
Full report on the University World News site

FEATURES

GLOBAL: Make Big Pharma provide data: critic
Philip Fine
Revealing conflicts of interest involving university researchers who consult for pharmaceutical companies will do little to make the research more transparent, says a British-based academic. David Healy has called for clinical trial data to be taken out of the hands of the drugs companies and made more accessible.
Full report on the University World News site

GLOBAL: Nuclear engineering fights back
Alan Osborn
For long the Cinderella of the engineering industry, nuclear power appears to be regaining its popularity as a career choice with a surprising increase in university courses, mainly but not exclusively in the US.
Full report on the University World News site

HE RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY

CANADA: Intelligence studies in higher education
Professor Martin Rudner
Intelligence studies as an academic discipline was slow to develop in universities. Perhaps the cause was the secrecy attached to intelligence matters, or the reluctance of academe to engage with clandestine services, or the fear of being subverted by covert organisations, but universities in most countries seemed disinclined to embark on teaching or research programmes relating to the intelligence domain.
Full report on the University World News site
Article from the latest International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence

US: Doing diversity in higher education
In a just-published book titled Doing Diversity in Higher Education: Faculty leaders share challenges and strategies, editor Winnifred R Brown-Glaude, an assistant professor of Africana studies at the College of New Jersey, and contributors uses case studies from universities around the US to examine the role academics play in improving diversity on campuses.
More on the University World News site

UNI-LATERAL: Off-beat university stories

UK: Rabbit run
Diane Spencer
This is a story that will generate shivers of horror, or hoots of laughter, among the inhabitants of rural Australia who are constantly engaged in a war against these little furry creatures. Rabbit owners in Bristol, south-west England, have been invited by Bristol University to help keep their animals healthy by bringing them for a free health check at the UK's first dedicated rabbit-only clinic.
Full report on the University World News site

EU: POPART tackles plastics deterioration
Curators worldwide work hard to preserve and maintain artefacts housed in museums. Although curators expend considerable efforts on paintings, sculpture and fossils, they must also contend with the problem of how best to preserve plastics. Artists have been using synthetic polymers in their work since the mid-20th century; now the EU is supporting a project that aims to improve preservation of these works of art.
Full report on the University World News site

INDIA: World’s youngest lecturer
Aman Rehman cuts a less than commanding figure at Dehra Dun’s College of Interactive arts where he teaches adult students computer-generated animated film, reports The Telegraph. His voice is slight and high-pitched and he is barely taller than the lectern, but then he is only eight years old. His family believe he may be the world’s youngest college lecturer and has applied to Guinness World Records to recognise his achievement.
More on the University World News site

US: Lecturers iffy about bonuses based on student input
The chancellor of the Texas A&M University System wants to give bonuses worth up to $10,000 to some instructors – but so far, many aren’t interested – reports Associated Press. “I’ve never had so much trouble giving away a million dollars,” said Chancellor Mike McKinney, laughing.
More on the University World News site

FACEBOOK

The Facebook group of University World News is the fastest growing in higher education worldwide. More than 550 readers have joined. Sign up to the University World News Facebook group to meet and communicate directly with academics and researchers informed by the world’s first truly global higher education publication. Click on the link below to visit and join the group.
Visit the University World News group on Facebook

WORLD ROUND-UP

US: MIT shrinks size of physics classes
For as long as anyone can remember, introductory physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was taught in a vast windowless amphitheatre known by its number, 26-100, writes Jodi Hilton for the New York Times. Squeezed into the rows of hard, folding wooden seats, as many as 300 freshmen anxiously took notes while the professor covered multiple blackboards with mathematical formulas and explained the principles of Newtonian mechanics and electromagnetism. But now, with physicists across the country pushing for universities to do a better job of teaching science, MIT has made a striking change.
More on the University World News site

US: Princeton, Harvard lead bond sales
Princeton and Harvard are leading US colleges and universities in a new wave of bond sales after market losses cut the value of endowments by a quarter in six months, according to Moody’s Investors Service, reports Bloomberg. Princeton University sold $1 billion of debt last week, its first taxable issue since 1994, while the University of Notre Dame in Indiana raised $150 million.
More on the University World News site

US: IRS considers expanding scrutiny of universities
The Internal Revenue Service is considering expanding its scrutiny of colleges and universities to focus on billions of dollars associated with academic research, federal financing and intellectual property, a senior agency official said last week, writes Lynnley Browning in the New York Times.
More on the University World News site

MALAYSIA: Economic crisis dashes study abroad dreams
Meg Tan, who has always dreamed of studying overseas, has had her hopes dashed by the current economic downturn, writes Elaine Ang in The Star. After completing her Cambridge A-levels at a private university college, she was looking forward to pursuing an accounting and finance degree in Britain. Her parents, however, have decided she must continue her studies locally instead – via a twinning or an external degree programme – to save costs.
More on the University World News site

US: Research growth comes at a steep price, study finds
A study released this month confirms and quantifies what many medical school deans and financial administrators have long understood: basic science research can be an expensive business, reports ScienceDaily. The study, conducted by the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, found that the institution had to add 40 cents to every dollar of external grant support received by newly recruited scientists in order to achieve financial equilibrium. Support required for established scientists is considerably less.
More on the University World News site

US: Colleges cut instruction spending
Most of America’s colleges are gradually paring back their investments in classroom teaching, an analysis of federal data shows, writes Mary Beth Marklein in USA Today. And all colleges have in recent years been spending a greater share of their revenue on expenses other than instruction, including computing centres, student services, administrative salaries and lawn care.
More on the University World News site

SOUTH AFRICA: University hopefuls out in the cold
About 22,000 more South African school leavers achieved university entrance passes in 2008 than in the previous year, but many cannot be absorbed into an over-taxed tertiary education system, reports the Mail & Guardian.
More on the University World News site

AUSTRALIA: Elite students exploit entry scheme
Students from exclusive private schools appear to be exploiting a special consideration scheme to gain bonus points for university entry, claiming health disadvantages at much higher rates than their public school counterparts, writes Anna Patty in the Sydney Morning Herald. A former Universities Admissions Centre assessor says the upsurge in claims has been so noticeable that “there appears to be an outbreak of anxiety and depression in some private schools”.
More on the University World News site

UK: Higher education labours under ‘Soviet regime’
It stops short of comparing John Denham to Joseph Stalin, but new research suggests that the UK Universities Secretary presides over a Whitehall regime that has much in common with the old Soviet system, writes John Gill in Times Higher Education. A paper suggests that the ‘new managerialism’ of higher education shares many of the pitfalls and dysfunctions that blighted the Soviet state.
More on the University World News site

US-ISRAEL: Ben-Gurion University launches relief fund
American Associates, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev last week launched the BGU-Negev Emergency Fund to address a growing crisis at the university and surrounding Beer-Sheva community due to the escalating Gaza conflict, reports MSNBC. The fund is urgently seeking to raise $10 million.
More on the University World News site

UAE: Universities to test for fluency
To ensure that young Emiratis remain fluent in Arabic, state universities will from September require new students to take a Common Educational Proficiency Assessment examination in the language, reports The National.
More on the University World News site

US: Arne Duncan skirts HE during confirmation hearing
Arne Duncan took a step toward becoming the next US Secretary of Education last Tuesday, but the Chicago public schools chief had little to say about higher education during his Senate confirmation hearing, reports Inside Higher Ed.
More on the University World News site

US: 100 million greenbacks for Stanford energy site
Stanford University will create a $100 million energy research institute that will develop cheaper solar cells, technologies that use electricity more efficiently and ways to prevent the build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, reports the San Francisco Chronicle.
More on the University World News site

US: Peace Corps announces Top 25 volunteer-producing schools
The Peace Corps last week announced the top colleges and universities on their annual list of ‘Peace Corps Top Colleges and Universities’ for 2009. The University of Washington, George Washington University and University of Chicago top this year’s list in three size-based rankings for undergraduate institutions, while Boston University was number one among graduate schools.
More on the University World News site

Tuesday 13 January 2009

University World News 0058 - 12th January 2009

NEWS: Our correspondents worldwide report

ISRAEL-PALESTINE: Operation ‘Cast Lead’ shuts universities
Helena Flusfeder
Universities in Israel and Gaza have been caught up in the savage conflict now raging in the Palestinian territory. All five universities in Gaza have been shut down while two were closed in southern Israel. “The academic situation in Gaza is collapsing. People’s main preoccupation is to get food and stay alive. They feel that everywhere in Gaza is not safe,” said one Palestinian professor.
Full report on the University World News site

FRANCE: Universities begin move to autonomy
Jane Marshall
Nearly a quarter of France’s 80-plus universities assumed new powers of autonomy on 1 January under the government’s Universities’ Freedoms and Responsibilities law. The legislation gives the universities control over their budgets, staff recruitment and salaries, and other areas that were previously the responsibility of the state. All universities must adopt the reform by 2012, though academics and students continue to express their opposition.
Full report on the University World News site

RUSSIA: Rector calls for sweeping reforms
Nick Holdsworth
The rector of Moscow’s Higher School of Economics – one of Russia’s top universities – has called for a massive shake up in the country’s system of higher education. Yaroslav Kuzminov says unrestricted growth of university-level institutions in recent years has left Russia’s higher education system a mess with wide disparities in standards of teaching and qualifications.
Full report on the University World News site

AUSTRALIA: Upheaval across university sector
Geoff Maslen
A plan to reshape Australia’s higher education system, deregulate universities, vastly increase their enrolments, provide students with vouchers to study at the university of their choice and extend government funding to a bigger group of providers are among 46 wide-ranging recommendations being considered by the federal government.
Full report on the University World News site

UK: Research activity “world leading”
Diane Spencer
Cambridge University came top of the league again in the latest research assessment exercise carried out by England’s higher education funding council, Hefce. The 2008 results, published just before Christmas, will be the last of their kind as the next process will be undertaken with a different method. After reviewing research conducted by 52,400 staff submitted by 159 universities and colleges, Hefce concluded that 54% of UK research activity came into the top two grades of “world leading” or “internationally excellent”.
Full report on the University World News site

ZIMBABWE: Brain drain project suffers brain drain
Clemence Manyukwe
A Unesco-sponsored initiative to stem the academic brain drain in five African countries faces collapse in Zimbabwe as a result of the flight of lecturers. An end-of-year report by the vice-chancellor’s office at Chinhoyi University of Technology said academic staff trained in grid computing as part of the initiative had left the institution for greener pastures.
Full report on the University World News site

NIGERIA: Renovation suspended at teaching hospitals
Tunde Fatunde
Crucial renovations at 12 academic hospitals in N igeria by two Austrian medical engineering firms, under contracts worth US$291 million, have ground to a halt following an alleged plan by “over-zealous” officials in the Ministry of Health to re-award the contracts to other firms. The companies have gone to court claiming breach of contract. Lecturers and students at medical colleges affiliated with the hospitals are concerned and President Musa Yar 'Adua has been called on to intervene.
Full report on the University World News site

EQYPT: Law tightens government control
Ashraf Khaled
A new civil universities law approved late last year by the Shura Council, the Egyptian parliament’s upper house, is set to tighten the government’s grip on higher education. The law provides for the creation of 17 new non-profit universities and makes the Ministry of Higher Education responsible for appointing half the institutions’ boards of directors. The other half will be left up to the universities’ founders and investors to select.
Full report on the University World News site

ZAMBIA: Government audits two universities
Clemence Manyukwe
Audits are underway at two of Zambia’s largest higher education institutions on the orders of the government, Higher Education Minister Professor Geoffrey Lungangwa told parliament. This followed an attack on the government from parliamentarians over examination paper leakages and political interference at institutions of higher learning.
Full report on the University World News site

TUNISIA: Arab world adult education conference
A three-day conference on adult education and building a knowledge society in the Arab world opened on Monday in Gammarth, Tunisia. Titled “Investing in adult learning: Building knowledge and learning societies in the Arab region”, it is one of five preparatory regional conferences for Unesco’s Sixth International Conference on Adult Education, Confintea VI, to take place in May in Belém, Brazil.
Full report on the University World News site

INDIA-AUSTRALIA: Joint venture research academy
The first joint institution for research and research training in areas of mutual importance to India and Australia has been established between the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, or IITB, and Monash University in Melbourne. The new institution was officially opened at the end of November and is a centre of research excellence in clean energy, water, biotechnology, mineral exploration and computer simulation.
Full report on the University World News site

NEWSBRIEFS

GLOBAL: Fellowships for threatened scholars
Around the world, scholars have long suffered harassment, torture and persecution as a result of their work. In the worst cases, scholars pay with their lives for their dedication to scholarship and freedom of thought. In 2002, the Institute of International Education launched the Scholar Rescue Fund to provide fellowships for established scholars whose lives and work are threatened in their home countries. Applications for the current round of scholarships must be submitted by 31 January 2009.
Full report on the University World News site

ZIMBABWE: Student nurses take over health care
Clemence Manyukwe
Zimbabwean nursing students are holding the fort at the country’s health clinics as professionals flee the country’s deepening crisis. Nursing students are deployed at medical institutions as interns as part of their studies. But a chronic brain drain, and regular strikes by medical practitioners – those who have not left the country – have seen students taking responsibility for health care before graduating.
Full report on the University World News site

ALGERIA: Strikes paralyse medical studies
Medical students last week returned for the new semester to find their courses in teaching hospitals paralysed by an “unlimited” strike called by unions representing medical academics, reported La Tribune of Algiers. Patients were not so far at risk but it was thought the strike in protest against job status and pay could spread to other hospitals if a settlement was not found.
Full report on the University World News site

AUSTRALIA: Mathematician honoured at conference
A mathematician renowned for her ground-breaking theories is enjoying a special 60th birthday ‘party’ at the University of Western Australia. The party, an international conference that started last week and continues until Friday, is being held to honour Professor Cheryl Praeger.
Full report on the University World News site

U-SAY

From NY Goodwin
I refer to the article about Egypt computerising the university curricula. I have just completed a degree that was half-earned through online classes and I strongly agree that professors need more face-to-face communication. Online education also does not give the university a chance to see the quality of the person or not, and online education allows cheating if a person desires to do so. Professors are often given more students than they would have in person and they are not reading all the assignments students turn in.
See the letter on the University World News site

SCIENCE SCENE

US-AUSTRALIA: Bees dance to the buzz of coke
A study of the effects of low doses of cocaine on foraging honey bees has helped animal behaviour experts better understand the surprisingly sophisticated bee brain, and drawn parallels between how humans and bees respond to the addictive drug.
Full report on the University World News site

US: Why dolphins carry sponges
Researchers from the University of Georgetown in Washington DC became the first to study the relationship between tool use and fitness in wild animals after investigating a subset of Western Australia’s bottlenose dolphin population and their use of marine sponges as foraging tools. Only some dolphins held a sponge on the end of their beaks to dislodge fish hiding in sand on the sea floor.
Full report on the University World News site

FEATURE

SOUTH AFRICA: The politics of higher education
Karen MacGregor
Power changed hands within South Africa’s ruling African National Congress a year ago and now national elections are looming. What the new ruling elite will mean for higher education is uncertain but the hot political issues this year look set to include teacher education and student fees, says Dr Cheryl de la Rey, Chief Executive of the statutory advisory Council on Higher Education.
Full report on the University World News site

HE RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY

AUSTRALIA: Bradley: a short-term political patch-up
Simon Marginson
Last month saw the release of a report of the Review of Australian Higher Education, immediately dubbed the ‘Bradley Report’ after the chair of the four-person committee of inquiry, former University of South Australia vice-chancellor Professor Denise Bradley. The Bradley committee was established by the Kevin Rudd-led Labor Party government in March 2008 just three months after taking office. It had a broad mandate to address issues in the tertiary education sector and was expected to be the vehicle for implementing the Rudd government’s much discussed ‘education revolution’.
International Higher Education
Full report on the University World News site

INDIA: Effort to join 21st Century higher education
Philip G Altbach and N Jayaram
India’s government will create 12 new central universities, adding to the 18 that currently exist. This is a mammoth undertaking and the equivalent of US$73 million has been allocated from the central government budget to it. Earlier this year India announced it would create 30 ‘world class’ universities, eight new Indian institutes of technology and seven Indian institutes of management in the coming five years. On the recommendation of the National Knowledge Commission, the central government is planning massive investment to upgrade and expand higher education. Other plans include enhancing the salaries of college and university academics – boosting salaries by as much as 70%.
Full report on the University World News site

PEOPLE

FRANCE: Duflo: economics can change the world
Jane Marshall
It was on a study trip to Moscow for her masters in history, during the last turbulent days of the Gorbachev regime, that Esther Duflo realised how she could most effectively work against poverty – by becoming an economist. Last Thursday Duflo, now Abdul Latif Jameel Professor of Poverty Alleviation and Development Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, gave her inaugural lecture at the Collège de France in Paris, as the first holder of a new International Chair in Knowledge Against Poverty created by the prestigious French institution.
Full report on the University World News site

AUSTRALIA: Economist had big impact on education
Obituary: Peter Karmel 9 May 1922 – 30 December 2008
Professor Peter Karmel, one of Australia’s most influential educationists, died in Canberra on the second to last day of 2008 at the age of 86. His contributions to education and research, and his influence on generations of researchers, scholars and students were profound
Full report on the University World News site

UNI-LATERAL: Off-beat university stories

US-SPAIN: Promoting science via the kitchen
Paul Rigg
Harvard University has teamed with a Spanish cook, Ferran Adriá, considered by many to be the best chef in the world, to promote science. Adriá is known among his disciples as the ‘chemist of the kitchen’ for the extraordinary way he goes about creating new dishes.
Full report on the University World News site

UK: Alzheimer's research hit by lack of brains
A shortage of donated human brains is hampering research into conditions such as Alzheimer’s and autism, reports The Scotsman. Scientists said that studies into the causes of the conditions could be hindered unless more brains were made available for medical research.
More on the University World News site

US: University of California pays 35,000 ex-students
Nearly 35,000 former University of California students received a holiday gift from their alma mater – a check for as much as $12,000 – reports the Contra Costa Times. The university last month paid more than $33 million to former students who participated in a class-action lawsuit over disputed fees.
More on the University World News site

CORRECTION:
In a report published on 3 August last year regarding a network of children's universities ( EUROPE: New network of children's universities) it was stated that the first International Conference on Children's Universities would be held last month. The date has been changed and it will now occur on 13-14 February in Tübingen . Details can be found at: www.eucu.net/conference

FACEBOOK

The Facebook group of University World News is the fastest growing in higher education worldwide. More than 500 readers have joined. Sign up to the University World News Facebook group to meet and communicate directly with academics and researchers informed by the world’s first truly global higher education publication. Click on the link below to visit and join the group.
Visit the University World News group on Facebook

WORLD ROUND-UP

CHINA: Push to ease grim graduate unemployment
China will push a rising tide of university graduates to find work in the countryside and small firms after Premier Wen Jiabao warned last week that they face a “grim” job market as a global slowdown seizes the economy, reports Reuters. Wen laid out broad policies to help graduates who are struggling to find work because falling exports, factory closures and consumer gloom are deterring employers from taking them on.
More on the University World News site

US: ‘Accreditation Lite’ for global recruiting agents
In the realm of international student recruiting, “a lot of agents will just send out blanket e-mails to universities saying, ‘Oh, I would like to be your representative’,” Sabine Klahr, director of international programmes at Boise State University, told Elizabeth Redden of Inside Higher Ed. “We don’t answer those e-mails typically. There are no standards at this point.”
More on the University World News site

US: Most laud Obama’s choice for education post
Education secretary-designate Arne Duncan is drawing praise for his ability to bridge gaps between competing school factions, though his lack of experience in public higher education may require some on-the-job training, analysts say, reports the higher education publication Diverse. President-elect Barrack Obama selected Duncan, chief executive officer of Chicago Public Schools, to take over the US Education Department.
More on the University World News site

ARAB WORLD: Lecturers, students protest Israeli assault
Students and lecturers in countries around the Arab world staged protests last week against Israel’s attack on Gaza in which more than 500 people have been killed, newspapers reported. Thousands of students took to the streets in, among other countries, Iran, Jordan and Pakistan. In Iran, students from various universities demonstrated on campuses, in front of foreign embassies and at the United Nations field office in Teheran, reports UPI Asia.com.
More on the University World News site

DUBAI: Malaysia to boost Muslim progress through HE
For Malaysia's Higher Education Minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin, efforts to make Malaysia a regional education hub is more than just about attracting an increasing number of foreign students to its 60 or so public and private universities, reports Bernama.com. It is also about assisting developing countries, especially Muslim nations, to progress by equipping their people with relevant skills and knowledge.
More on the University World News site

SOUTH AFRICA: Project to assess new school-leaving exam
Many students who register at universities this year will participate in a pilot project run by Higher Education South Africa, to test the new school curriculum, reports Business Day. While it is commonly agreed that the old curriculum was outdated, universities are a bit wary of the new school-leaving certificate, the National Senior Certificate, because 2008 was the first time it was written at matriculation level and they are not sure of the standard.
More on the University World News site

UK: Universities fail to woo poor students
Top British universities are to step up efforts to ‘socially engineer’ their intake amid evidence that attempts to attract more applicants from poor families have had limited success, reports The Times. Those involved include Durham, which has announced “urgent” action to raise the proportion of students from “lower social classes”.
More on the University World News site

US: Student loans a bright spot amidst economic crisis
Despite a massive federal effort to aid banks and boost the economy, lending has plunged in the last year, writes Robert Tomsho in the Wall Street Journal. Home mortgage volume and bank loans to big companies are down dramatically. But the government’s response is expanding credit in at least one sector: higher education.
More on the University World News site

US: The depressed history job market
This year’s decline in academic jobs in history may be 15% or higher, according to preliminary data presented last weekend at the annual meeting of the American Historical Association, writes Scott Jaschik for Inside Higher Ed. The figures came as no surprise to graduate students there seeking jobs.
More on the University World News site

US: Out-of-state students to boost California revenue
University of California, Los Angeles, sophomore Ying Chen could have stayed at home in New Jersey for college. Instead she travelled cross-country, where she willingly pays about $20,000 a year more for her education than most of her classmates, writes Larry Gordon in the Los Angeles Times. Some university officials think increasing the number of students like Chen would be a smart way for the university system to bring in more revenue at a time when the state budget is tight.
More on the University World News site

IRAN: A snapshot of higher education
The Tehran Times recently cited Iran’s Minister of Science, Research and Technology, Mohammad Mehdi Zahedi, as saying that university students currently comprise 5% of the country’s 70 million population, reports Armenia: Higher Education and Sciences. He said that university students comprise about 3.5 million of Iran’s 70 million population, and this year the student number is expected to reach over 3.6 million – up from 2.2 million in 2005.
More on the University World News site