Tuesday 24 February 2009

University World News 0064 - 23rd February 2009

NEWS: Our correspondents worldwide report

GLOBAL: Web ranking identifies regional leaders
Rebecca Warden
North American universities continue to lead in the latest edition of the Web Ranking of World Universities published by the Spanish National Research Council’s Cybermetrics Lab. US and Canadian universities between them account for more than 60% of the world’s top 200 universities. The league table, produced twice yearly since 2004, ranks institutions according to the size and quality of their presence on the internet and its wider impact.
Full report on the University World News website

CYPRUS: Belfast students aim to unite divided Nicosia
Makki Marseilles
A dozen sixth-year postgraduate students from the Queen’s University Belfast’ school of planning, architecture and civil engineering are designing ‘gluing schemes’ aimed at bringing together the Greek and Turkish communities in the Cyprus capital of Nicosia.
Full report on the University World News website

CHINA: Wealthier students have more options
John Richard Schrock
University students among China’s new middle and upper classes who fail to make the cut-off score in the national entrance examination, the gao kao, still have options to study in China and abroad. With limited capacity to meet the huge demand for places, and balancing the dilemma of fairness versus diluting the rigor of college education, universities are using a tier system to admit lower-performing students with money and even sponsoring programmes for improving the students’ English skills before sending them overseas.
Full report on the University World News website

JAPAN: UNU’s new research and education institute
The United Nations University has established a new research and education institute in Tokyo – the UNU Institute for Sustainability and Peace. A university release said the idea for an institute had been conceived by Rector Konrad Osterwalder and formally approved by the university’s governing council in December. The institute became operational on 1 January under the directorship of Vice-Rector Kazuhiko Takeuchi.
Full report on the University World News website

EUROPE: Effects of financial crisis vary
Geoff Maslen
European universities have been affected in varying ways by the impact of the global financial crisis, with those in some countries expected to suffer cuts and others elsewhere appearing to benefit. The European Universities Association has been seeking details from its 34 national rectors’ conferences and the EUA reports that while it is still too early to predict, it is clear that some higher education sectors face difficult times ahead.
Full report on the University World News website

SOUTH AFRICA: State funds for student expansion
Karen MacGregor
The number of university students in South Africa will grow by 53,000 to reach 837,000 in 2011 – and the government has allocated an additional R700 million (US$69 million) to accommodate the expansion – Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel announced in his 2009 budget speech this month. He also gave the student financial aid scheme a R330 million boost to enable more disadvantaged youngsters to secure university bursaries and loans.
Full report on the University World News website

EGYPT: Researchers up in arms
Ashraf Khaled
Hassan Mahmoud, a researcher at a state-run centre, wonders if Egypt’s government is really serious about boosting national development through scientific research. “Who can believe that a professor at a research centre earns no more than LE3,800 (US$680) a month?” he said. “How can he support his family with this humble sum of money and still do a good job?” Mahmoud is one of 6,000 professors on the teaching staff at 12 state-run research centres who are angry that a government plan to raise academic salaries excludes them.
Full report on the University World News site

ZIMBABWE: University closed following protests
Clemence Manyukwe
Authorities in Zimbabwe closed the University of Zimbabwe, the country’s oldest, following violent demonstrations sparked by the government's decision to charge fees in foreign currency. The protests followed an official notice demanding that students pay an examination fee of US$400 and US$1,800 per semester, and quickly spread to other public institutions.
Full report on the University World News site

NIGERIA: Rejection of acting VC sparks controversy
Tunde Fatunde
Lecturers at the Federal University of Benin have rejected the appointment of an acting vice-chancellor in an action that has sparked legal and political controversies that could have far-reaching implications for the rule of law and due process in Nigeria’s university system. Last week armed police were deployed at various campuses of the university.
Full report on the University World News site

NEWSBRIEFS

NEW ZEALAND: Low dollar fuels foreign enrolments
John Gerritsen
The global recession may have a pay-off for New Zealand, with the low value of the country’s dollar apparently fuelling an increase in enrolments by international students.
Full report on the University World News website

MALAWI: Top university dumps quota system
The University of Malawi has dumped a controversial quota system for the selection of students that saw it being taken to court last year. A press statement released by the chancellor’s office said this year’s students had been selected on merit.
Full report on the University World News site

SCIENCE SCENE

US: Call to action by scientists
The American Association for the Advancement of Science, the nation’s peak scientific body, has called on its members to work against climate change and to advance human rights around the world. At its annual meeting in Chicago, the association’s out-going President James J McCarthy warned that the Earth and its life might be entering a “new era where natural forces are being overwhelmed” by human influences on climate and habitat.
Full report on the University World News website

AUSTRALIA: Global warming hits cold-blood animals
Climate change is likely to overheat most ‘cold-blooded’ animals and survival is likely only for those in habitats that allow them to cool down, a new study indicates. The work by researchers from the universities of Melbourne, Sydney and Wisconsin, took into account animals’ ability to seek ideal conditions and regulate their body temperature.
Full report on the University World News website

US: Dog licks aren’t dirty say scientists
Monica Dobie
Dog owners who sleep with their dogs and allow their pooch to lick their face are no more likely to share strains of E. coli bacteria with their pets than other dog owners who shy from such contact according to new research from Kansas State University.
Full report on the University World News website

PEOPLE

AUSTRALIA: Confidant to vice-chancellors
OBITUARY: John Mullarvey 23 May 1950 – 12 February 2009
Frank Hambly and Giles Cooper
The John Mullarvey story is quite remarkable. With humble education beginnings and without a tertiary education qualification, not even John in his wildest dreams would have thought he would be involved at a high level in the development of Australian government policy on higher education, or that he would become an adviser to and confidant of Australian vice-chancellors.
Full report on the University World News website

FEATURE

GLOBAL: Structuring tertiary education
Gavin Moodie
There are two broad patterns or tendencies in structuring tertiary education. Some countries meet the different needs of different students, employers and of society generally by structuring sectors and institutions to serve specific needs, most commonly to establish vocational institutes to specialise in developing skills for employment and higher education institutions to provide general education and education for the high-status, high-paying occupations.
Full report on the University World News website

HE RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY

CANADA: Strange bedfellows
Charles Ungerleider
The call for evidence-informed decisions makes strange bedfellows of researchers and politicians. Researchers and political decision-makers live in different worlds, respond to different norms, and speak different languages. Appeals for evidence-informed decisions received momentum when, in a fin de siecle effort “to get better government – for a better Britain”, Tony Blair’s government embarked upon efforts to modernise government, calling, among other things, for “better use of evidence and research in policy-making and better focus on policies that will deliver long-term goals”. These calls for evidence-informed decisions required a bridging of the chasm.
Full article on the University World News site
Originally published in the journal Academic Matters

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WORLD ROUND-UP

UK: Universities warn of stiff competition in recession
The recession has triggered a scramble for a place at university with a record-breaking 465,000 people applying to begin a degree this September and a significant increase in the number of older applicants, official figures suggest, writes Polly Curtis in The Guardian. Vice-chancellors warned last week that with a 7.8% increase in applications – 34,000 more than last year – students face the most intense competition in years.
Full article on the University World News site

ISRAEL: Universities lost heavily in global credit crisis
The global financial crisis has cost Israeli universities some NIS 900 million (US$219 million) so far, due to both a decline in contributions and losses by university research and development funds that invested in the capital markets, according to an initial estimate prepared by the Council for Higher Education, reports Haaretz.com.
Full article on the University World News site

PHILIPPINES: Almost all universities not hiking fees
Higher Education Chairman Emmanuel Angeles said last week that he is going around the country asking university and college officials to heed the government’s call for a moratorium on tuition increase for the next academic year, reports ABS-CBN. Angeles said he had talked to university and college officials from 13 regions and all had expressed support for his call for a moratorium on tuition increases.
Full article on the University World News site

US: Accepting a raise draws fire
College presidents who declined raises and bonuses this year may have lost money, but they gained goodwill and political capital. As might be expected, the opposite appears true for those who clung to their often generous rewards even as budgets were slashed, writes Jack Stripling in Inside Higher Ed.
Full article on the University World News site

US: Harvard delays expansion plans but increases fees
Harvard University President Drew Faust announced last week that the university will delay its expansion into Allston in response to the harsh economic reality, and may even pause construction on a massive $1 billion science complex that was slated for completion in 2011, reports The Boston Globe. Faust also announced a 3.5% tuition increase for next year, bringing tuition to $33,696 and the total cost of a Harvard education – including room and board – to $48,868.
Full article on the University World News site

US: Economic woes test historically black colleges
Historically black colleges and universities, which for decades have been educating students who cannot afford to go – or cannot imagine going – elsewhere, have been particularly challenged by America’s economic meltdown, writes Errin Haines for Associated Press. Enrolments at the schools have declined at the same time endowments have dropped and fundraising sources have dried up. The same is true at most universities, but often students at historically black institutions need more aid to stay on course.
Full article on the University World News site

US: African-American studies expanding
Growing up, Rebecca Francis seldom saw anyone who looked like her in the history books. Few black men. Fewer black women, reports the Houston Chronicle. “It was a completely Eurocentric viewpoint,” she said. Francis, who is biracial, enrolled in African-American studies at the University of Houston to get the other side of the story. And she has, in classes where the topics range from the birth of civilization to hip-hop star Mos Def. But she and her classmates also have found that African-American studies is no longer just about social action and personal exploration.
Full article on the University World News site

US: Illinois shooting victims move on in different ways
When Maria Ruiz-Santana talks about the day a suicidal gunman shot her in the throat in her geology class at Northern Illinois University, she sounds as if she is describing a nightmare from long ago, reports The New York Times. “It feels like it happened to me years and years ago,” said Ruiz-Santana, 21, who was among the 25 people shot during the lecture, at Cole Hall. But it has been just one year. The university held activities last weekend to mark the anniversary, including a commemoration ceremony, candlelight vigil and memorial wreath laying.
Full article on the University World News site

US: The new reverse transfer
Stephanie Jamiot is a community college transfer student, but not the kind one might expect. Instead of following the steady flow of students who move from two-year institutions to four-year institutions, she is one of a growing number of so-called ‘reverse transfers’ who leave four-year universities to attend community college, reports Inside Higher Ed.
Full article on the University World News site

US: Family sues for return of Geronimo’s skull
It is the stuff of legends: an elite secret society that includes what would become some of the most powerful men of the 20th century allegedly invading the grave of an Apache chief to steal his skull for fraternal rituals. It's also the stuff of a new lawsuit filed last week by descendants of that Apache chief, reports Fox News.
Full article on the University World News site

Sunday 15 February 2009

University World News 0063 - 16th February 2009

NEWS: Our correspondents worldwide report

AUSTRALIA: Academics die in bushfire infernos
Geoff Maslen
At least six academics are believed to have been killed among the 300 Australians now thought to have died in the disastrous bushfires that raged across Victoria on Saturday a week ago. Other university staff saw their homes and all their possessions destroyed in minutes during the worst natural disaster Australia has experienced. Rural campuses of Monash and La Trobe universities were threatened by fires in eastern and northern Victoria but they and two other Melbourne universities have now made beds on their campuses available to emergency workers and homeless survivors.
Full report on the University World News site

US: Hiring temporary academics on the rise
John Richard Schrock
Universities across America are resorting to hiring freezes in the face of budget reductions. But a dangerous attitude is developing among higher education officials nationwide who see this as an opportunity to change the way universities permanently operate by hiring more temporary faculty to teach a course and then leave.
Full report on the University World News site

FRANCE: Strikes spread despite mediator
Jane Marshall
Strikes and protests in French universities and laboratories continued to spread last week, despite the appointment of a mediator by Valérie Pécresse, Minister of Higher Education and Research, in an attempt to find a solution to the conflict over a proposed change in academics’ job status and other reforms. Nine university presidents have joined the protesters in demanding withdrawal of the contentious decree.
Full report on the University World News site

UK: Universities respond to climate challenge
Diane Spencer
British universities are showing a high level of commitment to the sustainable development agenda, says a new report by the Higher Education Funding Council for England. In an update to its 2008 action plan, the council found widespread agreement that the sector had an invaluable contribution to make.
Full report on the University World News site

DENMARK: Students to pay for income tax cuts
Ard Jongsma
Danish higher education is in uproar after a panel of experts reviewing tax reforms suggested the maximum duration of state study grants should be reduced from six to four years. The experts argue that students on longer academic studies later in life will be among those benefiting most from their proposed tax cuts. Opponents fear that progress in social emancipation will be set back years, if not decades.
Full report on the University World News site

EUROPE: Students call for a global ombudsman
Student rights are being violated in institutions around the world and representatives of student organisations have called on Unesco to establish a global ombudsman’s office to tackle breaches of their rights. At a meeting in Paris last month, representatives from Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe and North America discussed issues they will present to the Unesco World Conference on Higher Education to be held in July.
Full report on the University World News site

UK: Cold climate for graduates
Diane Spencer
British students are facing an almost unprecedented squeeze on jobs when they graduate this summer, the Association of Graduate Recruiters has warned. In its latest bi-annual survey published last Wednesday, the association finds that vacancies are expected to decrease by 5.4%, banks expect a 28% cut in the number of jobs, and salaries will be frozen for the first time in recent history.
Full report on the University World News site

INDONESIA: More research papers needed
David Jardine
The Indonesian Institute of Sciences has issued a siren call to the country’s universities to produce more scientific and technological research papers. Indonesia currently lags well behind neighbours Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines in this regard.
Full report on the University World News site

NEWSBRIEF

GERMANY: Bologna process gets nod of approval
Michael Gardner
A senior Education Ministry official has taken a positive view of the impact the Bologna process has had on Germany’s higher education system. Speaking at a symposium in Berlin in the run-up to the Bologna Conference of Ministers in April, Parliamentary State Secretary Andreas Storm told government, higher education officials and students that Bologna had contributed to what he referred to as a successful modernisation of German higher education.
Full report on the University World News site

ACADEMIC FREEDOM

THAILAND: Professor charged with insulting King flees
Jonathan Travis
Giles Ji Ungpakorn, a professor of political science at Chulalongkorn University in Thailand, fled to Britain last week after being charged with insulting the King under Thailand’s draconian lèse majesté laws. Ungpakorn faced three to 15 years in prison for insulting the king in paragraphs in his book, A Coup for the Rich. Lèse majesté laws are intended to punish “whoever defames, insults or threatens the king, the queen, the heir to the throne or the regent”.
More academic freedom reports on the University World News site

BUSINESS

US: Push for higher education stimulus
Keith Nuthall
Members of the US congress have been pressed by higher education lobbyists to include the maximum amount of funding possible for American scientific and research agencies from President Barak Obama’s economic stimulus package.
Full report on the University World News site

ITALY: Diplomas subject to national qualifications
Alan Osborn
Each of the 27 member states of the European Union (EU) has the right to set the minimum level of qualification necessary to guarantee the quality of professional services within their territories, the European Court of Justice has ruled.
Full report on the University World News site

BELGIUM: Dog study may unveil genetic secrets
Monica Dobie
Universities examining pedigree dogs may provide some answers to the mystery of genetic illnesses in people through a new European Union-funded project called LUPA. It will try to pinpoint such disorders in pure-bred canines. The work could prove to be valuable as humans share many of the same diseases.
Full report on the University World News site

PEOPLE

CANADA: Bon vivant lived for language and opera
Obituary: Floyd St Clair, 9 November 1930 - 4 January 2009
Lisa Fitterman
If Professor Floyd St Clair ever had set rules for living, they would have been these: be fully engaged in life and as passionate in anger as you are in love, and never let the sun go down on your wrath, no matter how mad you are.
Full report on the University World News site

FEATURES

GERMANY: Another system of ranking universities
Uwe Brandenburg
Talking about rankings usually means talking about league tables. Values are calculated based on weighted indicators which are then turned into a figure, added and formed into an overall value, often with the index of 100 for the best institution counting down. Moreover, in many cases entire universities are compared and the scope of indicators is somewhat limited. We at the Centre for Higher Education Development are highly sceptical about this approach.
Full report on the University World News site

INDIA: Science and technology vs the humanities
Shreesh Chaudhary
In the past 50 years, science and technology universities in India have acquired global recognition whereas humanities and social sciences institutions are still struggling for national acceptance, in spite of a living tradition of education in these fields.
Full report on the University World News site

HE RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY

US: National census of chief academic officers
The first comprehensive survey of American chief academic officers – campus administrators who are well placed to take up chief executive positions at universities and colleges – has found that nearly two-thirds very satisfied with their positions yet the average length of time spent in the job is quite short, on average 4.7 years (compared with 8.7 years among presidents), and half find insufficient funds a major frustration. The CAO Census: A national profile of chief academic officers, produced by the American Council on Education, includes information from more than 1,700 individuals at colleges and universities nationwide.
More on the University World News site

UNI-LATERAL: Off-beat university stories

INDIA: The $20 laptop that didn’t cost $20 and wasn’t a laptop
The Financial Times published a report by James Lamont on 1 February claiming the country was planning to produce a laptop computer for the knockdown price of US$20, having come up with the Tata Nano, the world’s cheapest car, at about $2,000. University World News listed the story in its Round-Up section last week. Unfortunately for our readers – and a world longing for such a device – the story was wrong: there is no such laptop.
Full report on the University World News site

FACEBOOK

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WORLD ROUND-UP

US: Who gets what: billions to colleges and students
The stimulus plan emerging in Washington could offer an unprecedented, multi-billion dollar boost in financial help for college students trying to pursue a degree while they ride out the recession, writes Justin Pope for Associated Press. It could also hand out billions to states to kick-start idle campus construction projects and help prevent tuition increases at a time when families can least afford them. But cuts of $40 billion for state and local governments in the Senate version were a big disappointment for college leaders.
More on the University World News site

US: One step forward, two steps back
Public colleges and universities are just beginning to recover from the 2001 recession, and that progress is likely to be undone in the coming fiscal year, according to a new report, writes Jack Stripling for Inside Higher Ed. The report, issued by the State Higher Education Executive Officers, indicates that per-student state appropriations were on the rise from 2006 to 2008, following four consecutive years of decline. Even with these gains, however, state-supported colleges are receiving less in constant dollars per student than they were in 2001 – a peak year in data that stretch back to 1983.
More on the University World News site

UK: Delayed fees debate threatens universities
Universities are facing bankruptcy because the government has delayed a debate about whether to raise tuition fees, the most senior civil servant for science and research has said, writes Polly Curtis in The Guardian. In stark comments, Adrian Smith, the government's director-general for science and research, said that politicians had “kicked into touch” a promised review of university funding, leaving universities “going bankrupt”.
More on the University World News site

TAIWAN: Ministry freezes fees as economy struggles
Taiwan’s Ministry of Education has announced a freeze on fees for students this year in an effort to counter the impact of the economic crisis, reports Taiwan News. According to the formula used to calculate fees, an increase of between 1.8% and 2.7% would have been on the cards for the academic year starting next September. But the ministry reached agreement on a fee freeze during talks with three college associations.
More on the University World News site

US: Professors sceptical about online instruction
Online courses may be gaining a foothold in higher education, but substantial scepticism over their effectiveness remains, according to results of two recent surveys, writes David Shieh for the Chronicle of Higher Education. The surveys, conducted by the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges, also found “widespread concern” that budget cuts would hamper distance-learning programmes.
More on the University World News site

UK: Governors and academics are ‘out of touch’
Concerns that some university governing bodies are out of touch with the academic leadership of their institutions have been raised by the Leadership Foundation for Higher Education, writes Melanie Newman for Times Higher Education. A survey for the foundation found that although the majority of senior university managers reported that relationships between the governors and the academic board were constructive, a significant minority reported less constructive relationships.
More on the University World News site

GLOBAL: Darwin’s 200th birthday celebrated
Charles Darwin would no doubt be surprised to learn that, 127 years after his death, people around the world would be celebrating his 200th birthday last Thursday, writes Dan Vergano in USA Today. The official celebration website – darwinday.org – lists 281 events in 31 nations, including more than 170 in the US. Events range from “Evolutionpalooza!” at the San Francisco Main Branch Public Library to an all-day reading of Darwin's On the Origin of Species (its 150th anniversary year) at Lawrence University in Appleton.
More on the University World News site

INDIA: Idea of permanent HE commission revived
The government is considering the creation of a permanent higher education commission as an apex authority to anchor the increasingly large private role in the sector as well as government colleges, reports the Business Standard. The proposal is being pushed by the Ministry of Human Resource Development, which is known to be in favour of retaining education in state control.
More on the University World News site

INDIA: Wanted: 1,500 universities; apply here
The academic prize-winners still have their names etched in gold on wooden boards surrounding the main hall at the Bishop Cotton School in Shimla. In decades long past, the sons of India’s British rulers attended the hill-station school. Their names quickly peter out after 1947 to be replaced by Indian primus inter pares, writes James Lamont in the Financial Times. The private school, faithful to its 19th-century British public school model, equips scholars to compete in one of the world's fastest growing economies. But where students go on to has changed markedly over the past 60 years. Headmaster Roy Robinson says, increasingly, school leavers seek university places in Singapore, Australia and the US as they prepare themselves to meet the demands of a new age.
More on the University World News site

SOUTH AFRICA: Postgraduates popular as cashcows
In their race to lure more postgraduate students, some South African universities are stopping just short of offering students a free semester to Jamaica where they can sip cocktails and finish up their research thesis, write Primarashini Gower and Monako Dibetle in the Mail & Guardian. Postgraduate students are cash cows because they bring with them high government subsidies, more than for undergraduates.
More on the University World News site

CANADA: HE report highlights gaps in knowledge
As governments look to higher education to fuel economic growth and foster innovation, a new report finds there are large gaps in knowledge about how people are using the system and what is working, writes Elizabeth Church in the Globe and Mail. The report, released last week by an independent research group funded by the Ontario government, paints a picture of a province with a high demand for post-secondary education, but little evidence of how individuals make decisions about their education or the system’s failures and successes.
More on the University World News site

Monday 9 February 2009

University World News 0062 - 9th February 2009

NEWS: Our correspondents worldwide report

AUSTRALIA: Call for massive increase in enrolments
Geoff Maslen
A wide-ranging review of Australian higher education that reported in December has proposed a huge expansion in enrolments of local students to meet the nation’s future skills needs. Before the global financial crunch, the prospects of the federal government accepting the review’s recommendations were high. But a decision by the government last week to take the country into deficit with a $A42 billion (US$27 billion) infrastructure spending spree could profoundly affect the likelihood of the review’s recommendations being adopted.
Full report on the University World News site

UK: Rise in foreign students, fall in part-timers
Diane Spencer
Latest figures from the Higher Education Statistics Agency on student enrolment show an 8% increase in demand for full time postgraduate degrees among non-EU students and 2% for students from the European Union. The British Council commented: “While this is an excellent indicator of the quality and reputation of UK research and postgraduate courses, it also signifies that international students are increasingly coming to the UK to study shorter courses.”
Full report on the University World News site

FRANCE: Lecturers strike despite increased funding
Jane Marshall
As Valérie Pécresse, Minister for Higher Education and Research, was last week announcing a € 731 million economic boost to the sector, lecturers at universities throughout France were intensifying strike action against a planned change to the statute governing their employment.
Full report on the University World News site

GREECE: Inauspicious start to education dialogue
Makki Marseilles
Lack of money and the absence of a specific policy are placing serious obstacles ahead of the forthcoming dialogue on education, announced by Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis in parliament a fortnight ago and being undertaken by Education Secretary Aris Spiliotopoulos. The government is placing enormous importance on the reform of education in an effort to restore its tarnished image and losses it has suffered in areas such as the economy, agriculture, health and unemployment – but the indications are not encouraging.
Full report on the University World News site

LIBYA: African brain drain worsens
Jane Marshall
The African brain drain is reaching disquieting proportions and threatening development in sectors such as health, the economy and education, a conference in Tripoli of the Association of African Universities has heard.
Full report on the University World News site

FRANCOPHONE AFRICA: Underfunded and overcrowded
The universities of the 20 sub-Saharan French-speaking countries of Africa enrolled 400,000 students in 2005 but will have to cater for two million in 2015, said the French newspaper Le Monde. Meanwhile, at the University of Ziguinchor in Senegal, the rector warned against over-expansion of student numbers as the university, with the capacity for an intake of 700 new students, faced demands from 2,700 newly qualified school-leavers.
Full report on the University World News site

EGYPT: Women eye top university post
Ashraf Khaled
Apparently encouraged by recent gains in occupying typical male positions, Egyptian women have set their sights on the latest bastion of male dominance on campus – the university president. Candidates for this prestigious post should be judged by their efficiency, not gender, said Suheir Sharawi, Vice-president of Benha University, a public institution some 30 kilometres north of Cairo. “When treated equally and allowed to work on an equal footing with men, Egyptian women have proven their skills,” Sharawi told University World News.
Full report on the University World News site

EAST AFRICA: New quality assurance system
Dave Buchere
Institutions of higher learning in Africa must adhere to appropriate academic standards and acceptable learning environments to compete effectively globally, according to Kenya’s Higher Education, Science and Technology Minister Dr Sally Kosgey. A harmonised quality assurance system for East Africa, currently being developed, would help ensure the standards and comparability of university education among member countries, Kosgey said last weekend.
Full report on the University World News site

ZAMBIA: Expert calls for external examinations
Clemence Manyukwe
Zambia should reinstate the external examination system as part of improving higher education, according to British education expert David Parry who was hired by the Commonwealth Secretariat. The recommendation, one of many made by Parry about two of Zambia’s public universities, follows a report by the parliamentary portfolio committee on education that expresses disquiet over examination leakages and political interference in the running of tertiary institutions.
Full report on the University World News site

ZIMBABWE: Mugabe’s daughter to stay at Hong Kong University
Clemence Manyukwe
Hong Kong University has rejected growing calls to send home Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe’s daughter, Bona Mugabe, who is studying there under an assumed name. The presence of the dictator’s daughter in Hong Kong became known after her mother, Grace Mugabe, assaulted photographer Tsim Sha Tsui while shopping in the country.
Full report on the University World News site

NIGERIA-CANADA: Research to boost rice production
Tunde Fatunde
Universities in Canada, Nigeria and Benin are partners in a three-year project aimed at improving rice production, processing and conservation in West Africa. One objective of the research involving McGill University and numerous African institutions is to produce prototype parboiling rice equipment to assist small and medium-scale rice producers.
Full report on the University World News site

NEWSBRIEFS

EUROPE: New head for Central European University
John Shattuck, a distinguished human rights leader and legal scholar, has been appointed president and rector of the Hungarian Central European University in Budapest. Shattuck will replace the present rector Yehuda Elkana next August. A former vice-president of Harvard University, Shattuck is currently chief executive of the John F Kennedy Library Foundation, a national public affairs centre in Boston, where he also teaches international relations at Tufts University.
Full report on the University World News site

COTE D’IVOIRE: Students refuse to pay increased fees
Angry students at the University of Cocody’s faculty of health sciences are refusing to pay vastly increased fees. Members of the national students’ union for health sciences said they would pay no more than the old rate of 6,000 CFA francs (US$12), reported Fraternité Matin of Abidjan. The university authorities are demanding 50,000 CFA francs.
Full report on the University World News site

SCIENCE SCENE

US: Arctic turtle fossil suggests global warming
The fossil of a tropical, freshwater Asian turtle found in Arctic Canada indicates that animals migrated from Asia to North America directly across a freshwater sea floating atop the then-warm, salty Arctic Ocean, new research suggests.
Full report on the University World News site

GLOBAL: Ocean acidification: “the other CO2 problem”
More than 150 marine scientists from universities and research institutes in 26 nations have warned the world’s governments to act quickly to reduce the level of carbon dioxide in the ocean, describing the issue as “the other CO2 problem”.
Full report on the University World News site

UK: Serotonin causes locusts’ personality change
It just takes a little tickling to turn the usually solitary locust into the swarming monster that devastates crops around the globe. More importantly, researchers have now found the chemical responsible for the change – serotonin.
Full report on the University World News site

FEATURE

OXFORD: Inside the Hogwarts School of Graduate Study
Andrew M Boggs
New graduate students follow particular scripts when meeting those from other departments at Oxford University. Especially interesting is the script graduate students, notably doctoral candidates, follow in social or quasi-social situations.
Full report on the University World News site

HE RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY

GLOBAL: Time to rethink intellectual property laws?
David Dickson
The speed of the global economic collapse is provoking a widespread – many would say belated – realisation that many of the beliefs underlying economic expansion over the past 20 years need close questioning, particularly those involving the relationship between the state and the market. But so far the need to reassess the value of protecting intellectual property, and in particular, the claim that scientific and technological patents are essential for economic growth, has drawn little attention.
Full report on the University World News site

US: Extreme work-study
In the United States, the folk culture of higher education is deeply committed to the notion that higher education remains closely associated with higher wages. The truth is more complicated: more and more people have attempted to gain the higher education wage benefit in the past four decades, and real wages for many of those with advanced degrees have declined, rather than risen, writes Marc Bousquet, a member of the council of the American Association of University Professors and associate professor of English at Santa Clara University. In an excerpt in Academic Matters, adapted from his book How The University Works: Higher education and the low-wage nation, Bousquet explores the relationship of mass higher education in the US to a global shift toward precarious employment.
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WORLD ROUND-UP

RUSSIA: Harsh measures to stem ethnic campus clashes
Clashes between students of various nationalities have become so frequent and violent in Russia that the government has decided to expel those involved and to screen those applying to study in Moscow who come from non-Russian groups inside the Russian Federation or abroad, writes Paul Goble in Georgian Daily.
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TAIWAN: Education vouchers for unemployed graduates
Following a distribution of consumption vouchers to every citizen, the Executive Yuan plans to issue education vouchers to help unemployed university graduates, reports Taiwan News. The government has set up a special budget of NT$30 billion (US$891 million) for education vouchers and internship subsidies for university and college graduates, in the hope of reducing the number of the unemployed by 100,000.
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VIETNAM: Young choose higher education over jobs
Rather than seeking a job after graduation from the Mine and Geology College, Nguyen Ngoc Cuong opted to enrol in a masters course. With a new masters degree in hand, the 30-year-old engineer plans to take information technology and English language courses instead of looking for a job. These days, Cuong’s experience is not unique.
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KOREA: ‘Global campus’ planned near Seoul
South Korea will support foreign higher education institutions to move into the country by building a global campus within the Incheon Free Economic Zone, some 40 kilometres west of Seoul, reports the Korea Herald. Government will spend 40 billion won (US$28.8 million) this year to help foreign universities and research institutes take part in the planned global campus scheduled to open in 2010, according to officials at the Ministry of Knowledge Economy.
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US: Singularity University to study technology change
Technology is changing the world so rapidly that even geniuses need help making sense of it all. That’s the idea underlying Singularity University, an unconventional school based on NASA’s Silicon Valley campus that will host its first class of 30 graduate students this year, reports Associated Press. They will take a nine-week course exploring ways to ensure technology improves mankind’s plight instead of harming it.
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US: Professor accused of Rwanda genocide
Goucher College has suspended a visiting French professor from teaching after the Baltimore institution was presented with charges that he was directly involved in the 1994 genocide in his home country of Rwanda, writes David Moltz for Inside Higher Ed. While some view the charges as credible – he strongly denies them – some human rights officials are dubious, wondering if the professor is really in trouble back home over controversial statements he made questioning whether what took place in Rwanda was a genocide.
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RWANDA: Private universities want law amended
Private universities in Rwanda are opposed to a provision in the law governing higher education institutions that empowers senates to determine the salaries of staff, reports The New Times in Kigali. Whereas salaries for public institutions are determined by the Ministry of Public Service and Labour, the law provides for senates to establish emoluments in private schools.
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US: Obama’s billions for energy fuel research dreams
In the basement lab of Nitash Balsara at the University of California, Berkeley, are the ingredients of a lighter, more potent battery to power the cars of the future. To build it, he needs President Barack Obama’s stimulus package to pass, writes Oliver Staley for Bloomberg.
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US: A rebirth in stem cell research
More than a decade after the discovery of human embryonic stem cells, Texas scientists are poised to finally ramp up research involving the cutting-edge but controversial science, writes Todd Ackerman in the Houston Chronicle. With President Barack Obama expected to lift federal restrictions on the field, scientists have expressed their delight and predicted a long-awaited scientific renaissance will follow.
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INDIA: $20 laptop follows $2,000 car
India is planning to produce a laptop computer for the knockdown price of about US$20, having come up with the Tata Nano, the world’s cheapest car at about $2,000, writes James Lamont in the Financial Times. The project, backed by New Delhi, would considerably undercut the so-called ‘$100 laptop’, otherwise known as the Children’s Machine or XO, that was designed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the US.
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US: Unintended ‘whitening’ of University of California?
For several years now, the University of California has been debating plans to drop the SAT Subject Tests and to find ways to consider more minority applicants, writes Scott Jaschik for Inside Higher Ed. The debate has focused on the relative merits (or lack thereof) of the SAT and how to promote diversity while not violating the state’s ban on affirmative action. Last week, a new issue started to attract attention: concerns that admissions policy changes to be approved by the Board of Regents could lead to a significant drop in the numbers of Asian-American applicants who are admitted – with the major gains going to white applicants.
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US: First Hispanic leader of a major university system
A Mexican-American paediatric surgeon will become the nation’s first Hispanic to preside over a major university system when Dr Francisco Cigarroa takes the helm at the University of Texas System, which faces financial woes and complaints about diversity, reports the Chicago Tribune.
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SOUTH AFRICA: Troubled university gets administrator
South Africa’s Education Minister Naledi Pandor has appointed University of the Witwatersrand extraordinary professor of education Jonathan Jansen as administrator of the beleaguered Mangosuthu University of Technology, reports Business Day. Jansen, who started last week, has six months to help the university back onto its feet after what appears to be more than five years of tyrannical rule by suspended Vice-chancellor Aaron Ndlovu.
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US: Brandeis Museum closed by stealth
Few things are more poignant than a gem of a museum whose days may be numbered, writes Roberta Smith in the New York Times. So it was at the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University on a visit, days after the university’s trustees voted unanimously to trash the institution by closing it and auctioning off the 6,000 works in its collection. The action came without consulting either the museum’s own board of governors or its director, Michael Rush.
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Monday 2 February 2009

University World News 0061 - 2nd February 2009


NEWS: Our correspondents worldwide report


US: Blackboards without borders
Geoff Maslen
An Israeli businessman called Shai Reshef plans to open what he claims will be the world’s first tuition-free online institution “University of the People”. Based in California, the non-profit ‘university’ is supposed to begin operations in April using collaborative and open source e-learning course material. In lieu of tuition, a UoP release says it will charge nominal application and examination fees of $15-$50 and $10-$100 respectively but that these may be adjusted on a sliding scale based on the economic situation in the student’s country of origin.
Full report in the Uni-Lateral section on the University World News site

FRANCE: Academics strike over job status
Jane Marshall
Universities throughout France are set to close tomorrow, Monday 2 February, with lecturers starting an unlimited strike unless the government withdraws proposals to change their statute of employment. President Nicolas Sarkozy enraged researchers further by describing the national system of research as “disastrous”.
Full report on the University World News site

CANADA: $2 billion puts new coat of paint on universities
Philip Fine
Canadian universities and their aging infrastructure have received a promised injection of $2 billion (US$1.65 billion), part of a five-year $85 billion stimulus package announced last week by the federal government. Universities in Canada are not alone in calling for more government spending to improve their buildings and facilities; their counterparts elsewhere have made the same demand, asking their governments to spend their way out of the economic crisis, most notably in the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa
Full report on the University World News site

UK: Lessons from the Antipodes
Diane Spencer
Britain should emulate Australia by adopting a coordinated approach to international education, says a new report by million+ (sic), a think-tank of 28 universities that are mostly former polytechnics. Pam Tatlow, the organisation’s chief executive, said that compared with Australia the UK still lacked a comprehensive approach to international higher education.
Full report on the University World News site

GREECE: Government seeks consensus
Makki Marseilles
Unlike his predecessor, Greece’s new Education Secretary Aris Spiliotopoulos appears extremely conciliatory and is striving to give the impression a real change of policy has been brought about in his ministry after a government reshuffle. Spiliotopoulos has indicated he is even prepared to make significant concessions during a forthcoming dialogue on education.
Full report on the University World News site

FINLAND: Bridging the gender divide?
Ian R Dobson
Finland’s university sector is preparing for its biggest shake-up for decades, including a number of university mergers that could alter the gender divide. A merger between the University of Technology, School of Economics and the University of Art and Design is to be Finland’s tilt at establishing a ‘world class university’. The new institution will receive more state funding than other Finnish universities and have a different governance structure.
Full report on the University World News site

GERMANY: Science boost for development
Michael Gardner
The German Academic Exchange Service has launched two new programmes focusing on development cooperation. Universities identified as having the best concepts to address problems in developing countries are to receive special funding from the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development. Centres of excellence for teaching and research are also being established to train future leaders in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Full report on the University World News site

UK: New funds for sector
Diane Spencer
Universities and colleges in England are being invited to take part in a £50 million (US$71 million) scheme to help individuals and businesses through the recession. The Higher Education Funding Council for England launched the Economic Challenge Investment Fund to enable the sector to respond rapidly to the needs of employers and individuals during the economic downturn.
Full report on the University World News site

NEWSBRIEFS

US: Colleges breach student rights
A Philadelphia group, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, says that student rights are being violated by some of America's most prestigious universities.
Full report on the University World News site

UK: Red tape reduction
The bureaucratic costs on universities have been reduced by 21% over the last four years, says a report commissioned by the Higher Education Funding Council for England. The council says it is committed to reducing avoidable burdens on institutions.
Full report on the University World News site

ACADEMIC FREEDOM

THAILAND: Academic charged with insulting the monarchy
Jonathan Travis
Giles Ji Ungpakorn, a professor of political science at Chulalongkorn University in Thailand, was charged last week under the kingdom’s harsh 'lèse majesté' laws, for comments made in numerous paragraphs of his book, A Coup for the Rich. ‘lèse majesté’ laws are intended to protect the monarchy from defamation and those found guilty can face a heavy prison sentence.
More Academic Freedom reports on the University World News site

BUSINESS

FRANCE: Wine management institute launched
Jane Marshall
In the heart of one of the world’s most celebrated wine-growing regions, the Ecole Supérieure de Commerce de Dijon-Bourgogne – the Burgundy School of Business – will launch an Institute of Wine Management in October, grouping together all the school’s wine-related educational courses, research and entrepreneurial activities.
Full report on the University World News site

EUROPE: Ensuring better use of R&D
Alan Osborn
The failure of business to invest significantly in innovation projects remains the major weakness in the European Union’s research picture, says the European Commission. The commission says there has been substantial progress in some aspects of the EU’s innovation performance but investments by business in R&D and IT projects are “still relatively weak, especially if compared with the US and Japan”.
Full report on the University World News site

SPAIN: Researchers use nanoparticles to target tumours
Keith Nuthall
A group of European universities are banding together to create potentially valuable nanotechnology that could help pharmaceutical companies better target their anti-cancer drugs against tumours. The aim is to reduce the need to use wide-ranging chemotherapy and radiotherapy, which can cause patients to suffer from so many side-effects they sometimes wish their tumours had been left alone.
Full report on the University World News site

PEOPLE

AUSTRALIA: Australia Day or Invasion Day?
Geoff Maslen
Politicians in this country tend to make some odd decisions when it is time to nominate the person who will be appointed Australian of the Year on Australia Day, 26 January. This was the day in 1788 when an English sea-captain called Arthur Phillips sailed into Botany Bay with several boatloads of convicts and the European invasion of Australia began. Yet now Professor Mick Dobson, an activist Aborigine who likens 26 January to an “Invasion Day” has been named the 2009 Australian of the Year.
Full report on the University World News site

FEATURES

IRAQ: Rebuilding science amid fear
Brendan O'Malley
Two years ago, many of Iraq's scientists would have feared the consequences of a US presidential election won on a platform of the withdrawal of US troops. A campaign of assassinations had seen 340 academics murdered between 2005 and 2007 and attempts to liquidate the country's intellectual elite, particularly its leading scientists and medical experts, drove thousands of researchers and practitioners abroad.
Full report on the University World News site

INDIA: Science, technology and development
MA Pai
The ability of nations to recover from the current global financial crisis requires a high degree of innovation in which science and technology will be a key player. For developing countries that mostly missed the industrial revolution it is going to be an uphill task, while for nations such as India and China any recovery will be slow.
Full report on the University World News site

HE RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY

AFRICA: Does Africa need a pan-African university?
Linda Nordling
Africa used to have some great universities. In the 1950s and 1960s, cities like Kampala in Uganda and Ibadan in N igeria were renowned for their seats of learning. Alas, it did not last. Decades of neglect have left even Africa’s best institutions under-resourced and over-stretched. But attitudes are changing. Both governments and international donors, like the World Bank, now subscribe to the notion that a healthy university sector is essential for development and democratisation in Africa. So it should come as no shock that the African Union has a plan to restore universities to their former glory. But the project’s ambition may be surprising to some: a pan-African university to set the pace for research excellence on the continent.
Full report on the University World News site

UNI-LATERAL: Off-beat university stories

RUSSIA: Student day marked with touch of glamour
Nick Holdsworth
In a country where political correctness has made barely the tiniest impression on culture and society, Russia celebrated its annual student's day last month with a competition designed to prove that beauty and brains are natural partners.
Full report on the University World News site

FACEBOOK

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WORLD ROUND-UP

GLOBAL: Universities dread recession in China
The possibility of China going into recession poses a “cataclysmic” threat to global higher education, Professor Malcolm Gillies, vice-chancellor of City University, London, warned last week. Anthea Lipsett of The Guardian reports him telling a seminar on globalisation that the world of international higher education was going to get colder.
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US: University endowments loss worst drop since ‘70s
The value of university endowments fell about 23% on average in the five months ended 30 November 2008, according to two newly released reports, writes Katie Zezima in The New York Times. The steep declines are forcing colleges and universities across the country to contemplate wage freezes, layoffs and a halt to construction projects.
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US: Good money after…mediocre?
The disconnect could not have been more glaring. As the House of Representatives passed an economic stimulus package last Wednesday that would pour tens of billions of dollars into higher education, through spending on research, school and college infrastructure and aid to states to ward off cuts in education budgets, leading policy-makers gathered just a few blocks away to discuss education policy in the Obama administration, writes Doug Lederman in Inside Higher Ed.
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CANADA: York University strike finally over
The longest running strike at an English speaking Canadian university has come to an end, reports the Toronto Star. The Liberal government, with the support of the Progressive Conservatives, voted for Bill 145 on Thursday, ending the three-month York University strike. Loud yells of “Shame”, “Boo!” and the song “Solidarity Forever” could be heard clearly inside the Legislature from about 100 contract professors, research and teaching assistants, who demonstrated outside Queen's Park.
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UK: Universities that over-recruit students face cuts
Universities that recruit too many students face a cut in their government grant, ministers have warned, reports The Times. After years of being encouraged to attract more students from working class backgrounds and to achieve a target of getting 50% of young people into university by 2010, the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills has put a break on student expansion.
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UK: London Metropolitan University’s future in doubt
MPs have warned that the future of a large university is in doubt as it faces the repayment of over £50 million (US$71 million), after an audit found “incorrect data” on students, reports the BBC. London Metropolitan University has admitted that this puts more than 300 jobs at risk. The funding council says the deduction of income follows an audit showing inaccurate reporting of drop-out rates.
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SOUTH AFRICA: Science on the skids
South African science has hit the skids, falling behind countries like Egypt in chemistry, medicine and other crucial areas, reports The Sunday Times. Meanwhile, even the government’s main response to the crisis – a plan to create new industries in fuel-cell technology, space science, advanced metals and others – has stalled.
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SOUTH AFRICA: Ruling party demands black rector
The University of the Free State, which was rocked by controversy over a racist student video last year, has not done enough to attract “progressive” candidates for the post of rector, the ruling African National Congress said last week. A spokesman for the ANC in the Free State, Teboho Sikisi, said the university should appoint a black leader, reports Independent Online.
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US: ‘Social book-marking’ site for higher education
For the tech-savvy, social book-marking is old hat: log on to a website like delicious.com, save a few links, and share them with a network of friends. It’s a tool that some students and faculty members have used in the classroom for years, writes David Shieh in The Chronicle of Higher Education. Now a software developer hopes that a new social book-marking site, designed for higher education, will become an indispensable tool for academics. Critics, however, say limiting a network’s membership also limits the power of book-marking and defeats its purpose.
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US: University to sell paintings to raise money
A Massachusetts university plans to sell an art collection valued at around $350 million to boost revenue, underlining the growing toll of the recession on US schools, writes Svea Herbst-Bayliss for Reuters. Brandeis University said it will close its art museum and sell the entire 6,000-piece collection, including paintings by Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, following a decline in its endowment brought on by the economic crisis.
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US: Government approves stem cell study
A California biotechnology company plans to launch the first government-approved clinical trial testing human embryonic stem cells on people by next summer after receiving federal approval yesterday, reports The Washington Post. President Barack Obama is expected to lift restrictions on federal funding for such research imposed by his predecessor.
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