International
Maximising the civic mission of universities in Wales | According to a 2018 survey by the Civic University Commission, 58% of respondents said they were “proud” of their universities. However, 35% were unable to name a single thing their local university had done to engage the local community and 30% of lower socio-economic respondents had never visited a local campus.
HE progresses in Kurdistan despite financial crisis | Universities were forced to cut projects due to budget reductions. Soran University and Salahaddin University have placed plans to build new campuses on hold. A scholarship scheme, the Human Capacity Development Program, initiated in 2010 and leading to more than 1,000 students being sent abroad to obtain masters and PhD degrees, was suspended.
HE can provide basis for European culture and identity | We, schools, universities and other educational institutions, have to take our responsibility to teach our students what it means to live in democracies, what it means to be able to speak out, what it means to understand that others might have different views and to respect them. That is why our students need to develop the necessary intercultural and international skills, based on a deep and convinced acceptance of democracy and its values.
Automation will make huge demands on universities | An astonishing 46% of current work activities in Australia could be automated by 2030, the researchers say. But, they add, this could help drive “a renaissance in productivity, income and economic growth”…According to the researchers, however, achieving these benefits depends on ensuring displaced workers can find new jobs, given that automation technologies will disrupt workforces across the country.
New data reveals extent of access gaps in English universities | New data from the Office for Students shows 67% of English universities and other higher education providers had gaps in higher education access for young students from the least advantaged areas. The dataset from the independent watchdog for higher education in England shows that while progress is being made, students from disadvantaged backgrounds and those with mental health issues still face gaps in access as well as higher drop-out rates. There is also a significant achievement gap, with 74.6% of students from disadvantaged backgrounds being awarded a first or a 2:1 compared to 84.1% of students from the most advantaged backgrounds.
Access to tuition funding in SA remains a major concern | The Higher Education and Skills in South Africa report released by Statistics South Africa on Friday showed that access to funding for tuition was a major concern for some of the youth who could not pursue higher education. This is despite the report stating that between 2010 and 2017 a total of R70.8billion in National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) funding was granted to more than 3 million students. In 2017, 85.7percent of the money that was allocated to NSFAS was granted to university students, while 14.3 percent was granted to students at TVET colleges.
U.S. National
Faculty as Drivers of Innovation | Instead of regarding themselves as victims — of budget cuts, administrative mandates, accreditation requirements, and unsympathetic legislators — faculty members need to see themselves as the true and rightful drivers and owners of innovation. The faculty needs to exercise its power and expertise to prevent the diminishment of rigor and quality in innovation’s name. But faculty members also need to feel empowered and supported as they to experiment with new approaches to pedagogy, instructional delivery, assessment, and student support.
Faculty Salaries Up 1.7% | Full-time faculty members saw an overall median salary increase of about 1.7 percent over the past year, according to the “2019 CUPA-HR Faculty in Higher Education Report.” Pay for full-timers off the tenure track increased by 1.8 percent. Tenured and tenure-track professors saw a 1.6 percent pay bump.
U.S. Data: More Education Equals Better Job Outcomes | The brief report, “Relationship Between Educational Attainment and Labor Underutilization,” shows that nearly a quarter (23 percent) of Americans aged 25 to 64 who have a high school degree were either unemployed (13 percent), involuntarily working part-time (6 percent) or involuntarily working on a temporary basis (4 percent), while 16 percent of those with an associate degree, 14 percent of those with a bachelor’s degree and 13 percent of those with a graduate or professional degree fell into one of those three categories. More than a third of Americans without a high school degree were un- or underemployed.
U.S. States
‘Students First’ plan for state colleges really does put students first | Over the past several weeks, there has been a great deal of misinformation on our campuses about Students First, including the false claim that campuses would be closed. The fact is that one of the main purposes of combining administrative functions is to allow all campuses to continue providing high-quality, affordable education for Connecticut’s students. This plan strengthens vital community and business connections. Finally, the savings are achieved through reductions in administrative staff — not through cuts in faculty or other student-facing employees.
U of I president: Investment in higher education ‘part of solution’ to state’s fiscal woes | “We recognize that the state still has fiscal issues. We believe that we’re part of the solution, not part of the underlying problem,” he said. “In fact, the way you grow a tax base is by keeping people in our state, keeping talent, keeping high school graduates, and we’re the biggest asset, I believe, to make that happen.” According to the Illinois Board of Higher Education, 48.4 percent of Illinois public high school graduates enrolled in four-year universities in 2017 left the state to attend college. Killeen said U of I was fighting against that trend as evidenced by higher enrollment numbers, and college affordability in the state is essential to counteract the trend.
Evidence from California on the long-run benefits of financial aid | Overall, we found that financial aid led to positive long-term impacts on obtaining both bachelor’s and graduate degrees and, for some students, raised longer-run annual earnings and the likelihood that they resided in California. Students with the lowest income and GPA were 10% (4.6 percentage points) more likely to earn a bachelor’s degree. This is not due to increases in college enrollment, but rather that aid reduced the likelihood that students dropped out along the way. Students did not stop there, as they were 27% (3.1 percentage points) more likely to continue their schooling and earn a graduate degree. As a result of these changes, earnings reported on 1098 tax forms were about 3 to 4% higher between the ages of 28 to 32.
Institutional
Promises Ignored? | Yale University announced with some fanfare in 2015 that it was devoting $50 million over five years to faculty diversity. Three-plus years later, all 13 tenured professors who serve one of the university’s most diverse majors are withdrawing their labor from that program. In a resignation announcement Friday, the faculty members said they can’t adequately serve the 87 declared majors in ethnicity, race and migration studies, or ER&M, under their current circumstances. The professors, who all have permanent appointments in other departments, say they lack the autonomy and resources that Yale has promised them time and again.
2 Students Face Criminal Charges After Calling Border Agents ‘Murderers’ | “We’re very supportive of free speech,” Robbins said in an interview on Tuesday. “Students are allowed to protest, but not inside a building where classes are going on. When we have board meetings, students are outside protesting and chanting and beating drums, and we allow them to do that even though we can hear them,” he added. “We hear them, but it doesn’t disrupt the meeting.” Protesters who complained that their free-speech rights had been violated should consider the rights of the students in the classroom who were there to hear the agents, the president said. “Free speech doesn’t mean free speech only when you agree with it,” he said.
Arizona Faculty Members Want Charges Against Border-Patrol Protesters Dropped | In a written statement on Friday, Arizona’s president, Robert C. Robbins, called the incident “a dramatic departure from our expectations of respectful behavior and support for free speech on this campus.” In the faculty letter to the president, the professors asked that he “end the investigations and harassment of the students” by demanding that the campus police chief drop the charges against them. “We also implore you to ask the dean of students to support rather than investigate the two students,” said the letter, circulated by a group called Professors of Color, University of Arizona. By Thursday morning, more than 330 people, mostly Arizona faculty members, had signed it, organizers said.
Learning Science for All | Rather than making everything available at the same time, Carnegie Mellon will be releasing the collection in phases with accompanying guidance on how to conduct applied educational research using the tools. The effort is being overseen by the Simon Initiative, a learning engineering enterprise at Carnegie Mellon that aims to measurably improve student learning outcomes through science. Guided experimentation with the tools will be encouraged through the Empirical Educator Project, a learning science initiative led by the higher education consultancy Mindwires Consulting.
Posted: April 10, 2019