One notable challenge for many universities is moving beyond the superficial rhetoric of internationalization. Of course every university, and its leaders, are in favor of internationalizing: the signs are everywhere, from refashioned mission statements, to the building of some institutional capacity to understand and support internationalization, to the inclusion of the rhetoric of internationalization in speech after speech by university leaders.
Yet, in the end, the process of enhancing the territorial spread of institutional networks, and sometimes architectures, is not so simple: it requires the initiation and implementation of a strategic planning process, and the subsequent bringing to life of new linkages, partnerships, programs, and projects. All of these elements, of course, are more than technical issues. They are highly political, not just in what linkages with whom, but how they are advanced. For some, this involves a top-down led process of almost turning the university inside out (e.g., NYU), while for others it involves the slow and steady development of an infrastructure of support to enable units within a university to go at their own speed, in their own ways, free of formal managerialism where one unit (and often person) is deemed the defacto czar of internationalization.
Regardless of approach, one of the noteworthy aspects of this phenomenon is its formalization. What I mean by this is institutions of higher education are increasingly attempting to become more strategic in a comprehensive and legible way. Audits of international teaching and research activities are being conducted, and universities are ramping up their coordination capabilities via advisory councils, task forces, ad-hoc working groups and the use of specialist consultants. The best universities build in accountability and outcome measures to see what is really happening over time. This sometimes involves more staff versus additional resources for faculty and students, for good and for bad (see, for example, the vigorous debate about the rise of ‘deanlets’ and ‘deanlings’ in ‘The Fall of the Faculty‘, Inside Higher Ed, 14 July 2011).
Partnerships between academic institutions have tended to be the product of working relationships between individual academics; but more recently, as the potential benefits and risks from overseas collaborations have increased, universities and colleges have begun to manage their international partnerships portfolio more effectively.
Increasing competition is affecting the way UK universities think about their aspirations and how to maintain their international competitiveness. A strategic shift is underway – away from a focus on international student recruitment (at which the UK sector has been successful) and toward a longer-term and more partnership based conceptualisation of internationalisation.
Governments around the world are increasingly encouraging their universities to embrace the international agenda and to internationalise their institution. They are doing this by supporting and facilitating their higher education sectors to engage at an institutional level with global partners through teaching and research collaboration.
The free 52 page report, which is available in PDF format in English, Arabic and Chinese, is worth reading - for even if you are not interested in partnering with UK universities, the report helpfully sets out a series of issues worth thinking about in general at both the university level (i.e. how to frame and implement partnerships) as well as the larger system-wide scale.
For example, the report prompted me to reflect on the issue of what associations of universities could do to better communicate about, in summary form, the taken-for-granted factors shaping the national systems of higher education and research their own universities are embedded in. And if this were to happen, what language(s) should this form of communications occur in? What format should these types of ‘primers’ be available in, and at what cost (if any)? And whom should we be communicating with as we lay out some of the groundwork for the hoped for formation of partnerships? Similarly, do we, at the university scale, provide sufficient analytically-oriented information, in one place on our websites, about the history, nature of, and entry points (with respect to governance), regarding our universities that prospective overseas partners would find beneficial to read prior to visits and negotiations?
Of course partnerships, in the end, need to be brought to life at the university-to-university level, but keep it in mind that the diversity of systems out there mean that many universities need approval from ministries or government departments before they can engage in partnerships, especially if year-on-year resource expenditures are to be factored in. Given this, many government officials, ministers (or equivalents), and some unexpected others, have power to shape relationship-building outcomes even though they frequently do not have an understanding of issues, like academic freedom, quality assurance, institutional governance, research and teaching outcome expectations, etc. All the more reason for communicating about who we are, and are not.
While hardly comprehensive, or perfect, my read of A Guide to UK Higher Education and Partnerships for Overseas Universities leads me to believe that its authors and sponsors are attempting to provide a primer of this type; one for ‘overseas universities’ as well as the other actors who will have an impact on the partnership relationship-building process. It is also a reflexive piece; one that is reminding those guiding UK universities to think about the taken-for granted factors that shape their practices and expectations. In the end, these kinds of communications objectives cannot but be positive, for failed or unrealized partnerships (and there are many the higher education sector) generate ample opportunity costs that we can scarcely afford.
After experiencing the busiest academic years of our respective lives, we’ve decided to adjust the pitch of GlobalHigherEd, somewhat, and include a broader mix of long (for a weblog) analytical entries with shorter updates regarding important new reports, interesting visualizations, video clips, links to key stories or event-related websites, and so on. This should enable us to keep the weblog moving on a more measured pace, and also complement our active Twitter feed (which now has 2,700+ followers).
Alas, the pace of life when GlobalHigherEd was launched — during sabbaticals in Paris (Kris) and Amsterdam (Susan) — won’t be returning soon so our aspirations to only post longer (1,200-2,000 word) analytical entries has now become unrealistic. We’ll be sure, though, to keep the tone and focus of GlobalHigherEd the same as we continue to map out what is a fascinating, complicated, and ever-evolving global higher education and research landscape.
Editors’ note: if you are exploring GlobalHigherEd today please be aware that we’ve just loaded up two entries below regarding the world university rankings issue. These entries are designed to be complementary, though they clearly operate at different levels. Our sincere thanks to Pablo Achard of the University of Geneva for his very thoughtful guest entry (‘Rankings: a case of blurry pictures of the academic landscape?‘). Needless to say the entry written by Kris Olds, Ellen Hazelkorn and Susan Robertson (‘Governing world university rankers: an agenda for much needed reform‘) is an invitation to critically reflect about world university ranking futures.
As Allan Goodman alluded to in yesterday’s entry, this is commencement season in the United States; a time when graduating students, their families, and university officials all gather to celebrate achievements and life course transitions.
The first word cloud is derived from the remarks of US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan who spoke at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (a large public research university), while the second cloud is derived from the remarks of the University of Chicago philosopher Martha Nussbaum who spoke at Colgate University (a small private liberal arts college).
Over the last several months we’ve been experimenting with GlobalHigherEd‘s Twitter service http://twitter.com/globalhighered. Uncertainty at first has morphed into considerable happiness with the nature of this communications medium. It is complimentary to the GlobalHigherEd weblog in that is serves as an archive of URLs (e.g., to key reports, news stories, etc.), and it reaches a very different different audience for the most part. It is also one of the least immersive of digital communications technologies which reduces hurdles to participating.
In addition, there is a fascinating conversation going on, at a range of levels, with the interlinked people and institutions we follow or are followed by. Insights can be gained about the modus operandi regarding select institutions that Twitter, arguments and counter-arguments can be put forward, and breaking news items can be put out. As the author William Gibson (in his Twitter service Great Dismal) puts it “Twitter is like little animated hieroglyphics in the margins of a working manuscript, offering obscurely breaking news.”
A case in point is the most recent of our ‘tweets’ today:
The University of Phoenix’s “virtual” (or Chicago-based) leaders and the associated costs: http://bit.ly/bxTXcw
My Google alerts system pulled in this fascinating story about the “virtual” nature of the University of Phoenix’s senior management, the significant financial costs entailed in permitting such a distanciated HQ managerial system to exist, and the city-regional disconnects generated when a Phoenix-based headquarters is largely run out of Chicago’s AT&T Corporate Center. Alas, given obligations to review term paper proposals, review papers, and engage with colleagues about a range of university matters, GlobalHigherEd‘s Twitter service http://twitter.com/globalhighered will have to do the job, at least for today.
Please ‘follow’ us should this service be of interest. If not, no worries as we’ll be maintaining the GlobalHigherEd weblog — indeed we’re working to develop a HubZero-style platform for our global higher education and research projects, and we hope to use this virtual platform to enhance the quality of GlobalHigherEd, both the weblog and the Twitter service.
Unanimously passed on December 16th 2009, the Bill now enables UNILA to formally announce itself as a university, instead of a fledging project under the banner of the Institute for Advanced Studies, with oversight by the University of Parana, in the Brazilian state of Parana.
UNILA is one of three regional integration universities launched by Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in 2006 to advance Brazil’s interests within the region and globally. The other two university projects are UNILAB – the Afro-Brazilian University of Integration, and UNIAM – the University of Amazonian Integration.
These Brazilian initiatives were the latest addition to a rapidly changing higher education landscape around the globe, and one that is set to continue in 2010 (as implied in a recent NY Times report about the implications of the collapse of Dubai’s overheated economy for branch campuses such as Michigan State University and Rochester Institute of Technology).
As Kris Olds wrote in his introduction to Coulter’s entry:
KAUST is a unique experiment in how to organize an institution to facilitate innovation in scientific knowledge production, a secure and efficient compound (hence Saudi Aramco’s involvement), a defacto sovereign wealth fund, a demonstration effect for new approaches to higher education in Saudi Arabia, and many other things (depending on standpoint).
So what do these initiatives have in common? Money aside (KAUST has an endowment of around US$11bn), but like KAUST, Brazil’s three new universities reflect a shared ambition: to use international higher education networks to advance cultural, political and economic projects.
However while KAUST is aimed at developing a world class national university in Saudi Arabia via the recruitment of global talent (academics and students), state of the art buildings and cutting edge development projects, UNILA, UNILAB and UNIAM are aimed at creating a ‘supranational’, ‘global’ and ‘regional’ university respectively, drawing upon staff and students from within the wider region, or from across south-south networks (UNILAB) – though each, as I will show below, have distinctive visions and territorial reaches with UNILAB the most global.
In August of 2009, I had the privilege of attending the official launch of UNILA. Close to the fabulous Iguacu Falls, in Foz, Parana, UNILA is being developed on a 43 hectare site granted by Itaipu Binacional, the bi-national energy company running the huge hydro-electric dam providing energy to Paraguay and the southern cone of Brazil.
The objectives of UNILA are to pursue inter-regional trans-disciplinary research and teaching in areas of joint interest of the MERCOSUL member countries (Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina, Uruguay) focusing, for example, upon use of natural resources, trans-border biodiversity, social sciences and linguistic research, international relations as well as relevant disciplines for strategic development.
Unlike KAUST, however, whose model is US-oriented (in becoming the MIT of the East, the ‘Stanford by the Seashore’), UNILA’s mission and approach to knowledge is shaped by a distinctive Latin American commitment. Each course has a Patron and a Founder.
The first Patrons have been chosen for being Latin American names who have left relevant academic-scientific contributions associated to a field of knowledge , while course founders have been appointed for the high academic prestige in their respective fields of knowledge as well as renowned international competence in their specialities.
10 Professorial Chairs have been appointed to UNILA. Each Chair has a mandate to develop courses in ways that are inspired by, and advance, the intellectual legacy of the Patron. For instance, in the area of science, technology and innovation, founding Chair, Hebe Vessuri, will draw inspiration from the patron Amilcar Herrerra (1920-1995) – an Argentinean geologist who valued inter-disciplinary knowledge and who have argued that the solution to problems lay not with science as progress, but in the interface with policy and politics.
These patrons are clearly not the organic intellectuals of the ruling classes. Many of these patrons, such as the Chilean writer Francisco Bilbao (1823-65), and Paraguay’s Augusto Roa Bastos (1917-2005), have spent years in exile.
The target student population for UNILA is 10,000 students enrolled in undergraduate and post-graduate programmes leading to MA and PhD degrees. Entrants will be required to sit a university entry examination that will be offered in two versions: one with a Portuguese language requirement for Brazilian citizens and a Spanish Language for the foreign candidates of eligible member countries. Lectures will be offered in both Portuguese and Spanish, as it is expected that half of the teaching staff will be from the regional member countries.
By way of contrast with UNILA, UNILAB is the most global in ambition. This unilateral Portuguese-speaking Afro-Brazilian University of Integration will have campuses in various Portuguese speaking countries (Brazil, Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Portugal, Sâo Tomé and Príncipe, and East Timor). Expected to open for enrolment in the beginning of 2010, UNILAB is hailed as a political-pedagogic innovation project (see here for information on UNILAB developments).
The principal aim of UNILAB is to encourage and strengthen co-operation, partnerships, and cultural, educational and scientific exchanges between Brazil an member states of the Community of Portuguese-Speaking Countries (CPLP) listed above. UNILAB will also focus on collaboration with the African countries of the CPLP, aiming to contribute to these nations’ socio-economic development, including reducing ‘brain drain’ problems currently experienced by African countries.
UNILAB is intended to become an integrated multi-campus institution with campuses in all the African member countries of the CPLP. Each of these campuses will also be integrated within the regions where they are located. Its main campus will be established in the city of Redenção in Brazil’s North-Eastern state of Ceará, approximately 60 kilometres from the city of Fortaleza. Redenção has been selected to host the main campus because it was the first municipality that had abolished slavery in Brazil, and because the region currently does not yet host a university. The main campus is also expected to function as an instrument for the strategic social-economic development of the North-East of Brazil.
We will not offer traditional programmes, but instead we will construct a common identity between the countries, that makes it possible to contribute to the social-economic development of each of the countries involved.
The third, more regional, initiative, Universidade Federal da Integração Amazônica, or UNIAM, will be established as a public multi-campus university, with a main campus in the Brazilian city of Santarém, and three satellite campuses in the cities Itaituba, Monte Alegre and Oriximiná, all located in Brazil’s state of Pará.
The main aim of UNIAM will be to encourage social-economic integration of the Amazon region, which includes not only parts of Brazil, but also areas of eight surrounding countries.
UNIAM’s main campus will be established in the Brazilian city of Santarém, and three satellite campuses in the cities Itaituba, Monte Alegre and Oriximiná, all located in Brazil’s state of Pará. The aim of the new institution will be to encourage social-economic integration of the Amazon region, which includes not only parts of Brazil, but also areas of eight surrounding countries.
While it is unclear at the moment when the new university will open for enrolment, by 2013 UNIAM is expected to offer 41 programmes at Bachelor’s, Master’s and doctoral levels. The Brazilian government will reportedly cover the US$107 million budget that will be needed to pay for the establishment and personnel costs of the new university until 2012.
Described by the Brazilian Ministry of Education as particular ‘political-pedagogic innovation projects’, these three new universities are intended to enhance national, regional and global integration, and demonstrate to the world that it may be possible to unite different countries through education.
These are fascinating initiatives likely to liven up the global higher education landscape in 2010. They reflect not only emerging regionalisms, but potential shifts in the sites and stakes of global and regional knowledge production and power.
GlobalHigherEd was established in the Fall of 2007 at the start of a wonderful year long sabbatical at Sciences Po in Paris (for Kris), and an inspiring four month long visiting professorship at the University of Amsterdam (for Susan). Alas our ‘regular’ schedules are relatively hectic now so we are attempting to be creative with less frequent entries, the utilization of periodic guest entries, and so on.
On this note, today marks the start of a GlobalHigherEd Twitter service. Those of you who wish to keep up with briefer notices regarding interesting reports, debates, events, and so on, should subscribe to: http://twitter.com/globalhighered, and/or keep an eye on the Twitter widget to the right (just below our visitor location map) which will simultaneously profile our ‘mini’ contributions, and allow you to track/link without subscribing.
The Twitter service is designed to complement (not replace) GlobalHigherEd, lay some practical groundwork for longer entries in our weblog, and act as a relatively immediate funnel for information regarding the globalization of higher education and research for the ‘knowledge economy’.
Editor’s note: this entry (which consists of two parts, one brief survey of themes, and one informal series of ‘postcards’) was prepared by Dr. Kimberly Coulter on the basis of her visit to Jeddah and Thuwal, Saudi Arabia. Dr. Coulter attended the opening of King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) and had a fascinating time engaging with KAUST officials (including President Choon Fong Shih), KAUST’s new students, and representatives of the international media.
KAUST is an example of an ambitious attempt to construct a new site of knowledge production, albeit one that is significantly deterritorialized given the globalized nature of the forms and quality of the epistemic communities being targeted, and the cultural-politics of Saudi Arabia. KAUST is thus a unique experiment in how to organize an institution to facilitate innovation in scientific knowledge production, a secure and efficient compound (hence Saudi Aramco‘s involvement), a defacto sovereign wealth fund, a demonstration effect for new approaches to higher education in Saudi Arabia, and many other things (depending on standpoint). Regardless of standpoint, though, KAUST is an experiment worth watching, discussing, debating about, and learning from.
Dr. Coulter’s previous entry in GlobalHigherEd was ‘The NSF’s ‘cool’ project: a charrette assesses interdisciplinary graduate education, with surprising results‘. Many thanks to Kimberly for her effort in putting these two contributions together amidst the move from the University of Wisconsin-Madison to Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich. We would also like to thank KAUST and Rachelle Lacroix of Fleishman-Hillard for the invitation and assistance in enabling us to cover aspects of this key event.
Part I: Saudi Arabia unveils co-ed ‘House of Wisdom’
In an atmosphere of spectacular fanfare and intense security, Saudi Arabia inaugurated its new King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) on 23 September. The US$12.5 billion dollar university is a gated compound on the Red Sea coast in the province of Mecca, approximately 50 miles north of Jeddah.
As Saudi Arabia’s first and only co-educational university, KAUST relaxes the social taboo of gender mixing as it aims to catapult the Kingdom onto the international playing field of knowledge economies. For foreign universities, it represents an opportunity to be paid royally to share advice and curricula; for the adventurous early-career researcher, KAUST offers funding and opportunities unavailable anywhere else.
To execute his vision for a world-class research university, Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud turned to Saudi Aramco, the state-owned oil corporation. Aramco is experienced with research management, technology transfer, and attracting talented foreigners to extraterritorial compounds within the Kingdom. An all-star lineup of trustees, including former President of Ireland Mary Robinson, and international higher education advisors, including members of the Washington Advisory Group, provided advice on how to leverage the Kingdom’s resources to engage prestigious institutions and scientific minds abroad.
King Abdullah compares KAUST to the House of Wisdom, the great Baghdad research and education center of the Islamic Golden Age, situating the new university in the context of Islamic scientific achievement and regional welfare. Arab News stressed the House of Wisdom’s intercultural foundation:
Founded by the caliphs Harun Al-Rashid and his son Al-Ma’mun, Bait Al-Hikma or the House of Wisdom served as a library, research center and translation bureau in Baghdad from the 9th to 13th centuries. Acclaimed as an intellectual hub that highlighted the “Golden Age” of Islam by fostering nontraditional dialogue and alliances between those of different backgrounds, it attracted the likes of Jabir ibn Hayyan, Muhammad ibn Musa Al-Khawarizmi and Badi Al-Zaman Ismail ibn Al-Razzaz Al-Jazari.
King Abdullah’s message: “as a new ‘House of Wisdom,’ the University shall be a beacon for peace, hope, and reconciliation and shall serve the people of the Kingdom and benefit all the peoples of the world in keeping with the teachings of the Holy Quran, which explains that God created mankind in order for us to come to know each other.”
While the House of Wisdom scholars concerned themselves with topics from physics to philosophy, KAUST is not a comprehensive university. Rather, it concentrates on nine science and engineering areas expected to economically diversify Saudi Arabia (and Saudi Aramco) beyond oil. Its research may have practical applications such as water desalination, pollution remediation; the genetic engineering of more draught-tolerant plants, and the development of stable and cost-effective solar cells. At the inauguration day press conference, Ali Ibrahim Al-Naimi, Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources and Chairman of the KAUST Board of Trustees said, “Saudi Arabia aspires to export as much solar energy in the future as it exports oil now.”
Research breakthroughs and the transfer of these new technologies to regional companies are expected to lead to economic growth and high-paying jobs. President Choon Fong Shih likes to call KAUST “Stanford by the Sea.” “Intellectual property,” he told GlobalHigherEd, is “is not an issue”—all discoveries by KAUST researchers become the property of KAUST. For international partnerships, agreements have been made to share intellectual property rights.
International partnerships
Thanks to a phenomenal endowment (waqf) exceeding US$10 billion, KAUST has succeeded in enlisting prestigious partners. Regardless of whether or not these initial collaboration agreements grow into durable long-term partnerships, KAUST’s campaign to attract international partners is, as Robert A. Jones observes, “remarkable for its subtle understanding of how high-level science research proceeds.”
All KAUST research is to be incubated in the context of international partnerships. KAUST’s Academic Excellence Alliance program provides roughly $25 million to foreign universities (Berkeley, Cambridge, Stanford, University of Texas at Austin, and Imperial College London) to advise KAUST on hiring and curricula. In addition to supporting researchers based on its campus, KAUST also provides generous grants to researchers abroad, with expectations of collaboration and participation in researcher and student exchanges with KAUST. Its Global Research Partnership grants of up to $25 million over five years will support to centers at Cornell, Oxford, Stanford, and Texas A&M, and three other “centers-in-development.” KAUST also funds individual investigators’ research projects with grants of $10 million each. These professors will be expected to visit KAUST each year for three weeks to three months.
In addition to linking its external grants to researcher exchange, KAUST also uses scholarships to develop human capital for the region. This semester, 374 men and women begin their graduate work; another 443 will join in 2010. Only 15% are Saudi, but many others have ties to the Middle East. While the Kingdom has long sent talented Saudi students abroad to study, it can now attract foreign students as well, a long-term investment expected to yield a global network of industry and government leaders with ties to Saudi Arabia. It is a strategy similar to the U.S. Fulbright Program and more extensively employed by organizations such as the German Academic Exchange Service.
Recruiting talented students and faculty
KAUST counts on exciting research opportunities and first-rate infrastructure to lure researchers. President Shih told GlobalHigherEd that KAUST is “not looking for a typical academic, but for someone who wants to do something big.” He wants intellectually and culturally adventurous “faculty who want to make a contribution to this part of the world, who want to learn something about this culture.” KAUST has successfully recruited many Middle Easterners based outside the region. How long KAUST will be able to retain faculty within its compound is another question.
KAUST has much to offer the research-focused. It boasts state-of-the-art facilities; “Shaheen,” the world’s 14th fastest supercomputer; and CORNEA, a 3-D “cave” that allows footie- and 3D-goggle-clad visualization researchers to walk inside models of spatial and acoustical environments, such as those underground. Although most of its holdings have yet to arrive, KAUST’s library will soon provide access to 2,000 journals and 10 online databases, interlibrary loan services, and a wide selection of general interest books. KAUST offers faculty competitive salaries (estimated at 1.5 to 2 times US salaries, tax-free, plus many benefits), and—perhaps more importantly—generous multi-year research grants.
Students were recruited from their undergraduate institutions through the Institute of International Education (IIE), on the board of which KAUST advisor Karen Holbrook, also part of the Washington Advisory Group, serves. The KAUST Discovery Scholarship provides all students with paid housing, travel, and generous stipends. It was not only research and funding that attracted many to KAUST, but also the chance to study in an internationally rich context. Students reported activities including camel rides, regional excursions, and exercises to explore cultural differences in communication styles. Michelle Gatz, who graduated from UW-Madison’s mechanical engineering program in 2009, was recruited to do graduate work at KAUST. Gesturing with hands beautifully hennaed from a recent trip to Bahrain, Gatz exudes enthusiasm not only for the scientific opportunities she has at KAUST, but also the cultural ones. She is learning about Islam and Saudi Arabia, and meeting people from around the world. “Everyone here,” she said, “has been so nice.”
Together with KAUST staff, students and faculty form a small city with residents from 70 countries. A city, President Shih says, “with rich and diverse DNA.” Asked how KAUST’s diverse human resources will be engaged to promote understanding around issues of culture and gender, President Shih said he prefers to focus on KAUST’s exciting scientific challenges and how science brings people together: only “when there is nothing exciting, then we focus on differences.”
Culture and gender issues
Many observers are excited about the opening of Saudi Arabia’s first university that allows men and women to interact directly. All other Saudi universities are single-sex; when women are taught by male professors, contact is technologically mediated. A coeducational foundation was undeniably necessary for KAUST to engage prestigious foreign partners and compete for talent internationally, yet some Saudi-based critics object to KAUST’s relaxation of this social taboo. Other critics simply doubt that Saudi Arabia’s students and staff, trained in a secondary education system that emphasizes learning by rote, will be prepared for the demands of a modern, world-class research university. How will the Western academic model transfer into Saudi Arabia’s restrictive social context?
It was difficult to find KAUST officials and staff willing to address such questions. When asked if KAUST had provided training to address gender issues, a female professor replied, “there was a program—they called it a cultural program. It included this. Students had many questions about this.” KAUST divides the responsibility for student advising between a research advisor and an academic advisor who could address issues—including cultural ones—related to degree completion. If KAUST’s model of divided responsibility is not an effort to reduce research supervisor’ workload, but is rather an effort to broaden the network of senior advisors on whom early-career researchers rely, it could be a successful new model—perhaps one from which the West can learn.
Will KAUST be able to attract the most promising women scientists? At the press conference, Dr. Jasmeen Merzaban, Assistant Professor of Biochemistry at KAUST said, “For me coming to Saudi Arabia has been an amazing experience.” She said she has encountered no barriers, in that research is “all based on science.” Her colleague Dr. Niveen M. Khashab, Assistant Professor of Chemical Science and Environmental Science and Engineering, cited the level of infrastructure and interest at the biggest attraction—KAUST has “everything that any assistant professor, regardless of gender, would look for.” She explained, “he—he or she—would look for interest in the research, funding, and just being in a successful environment.” Al-Naimi, Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources and Chairman of the KAUST Board of Trustees, implored the press to “focus on the great minds, rather than gender, please. Thank you.”
Clearly, KAUST’s architects have given careful attention to issues of culture and gender awareness within the university compound. Officials’ resistance to discussing these efforts publicly suggests the seriousness of the social pressure KAUST faces in Saudi Arabia, and attests to the extreme care being taken to safeguard this audacious scientific—and social—experiment.
Advancing Saudia Arabia, and the world
Already, KAUST is a remarkable achievement. It gives the striking impression that, in Saudi Arabia, anything is possible. One of the most important legacies of the House of Wisdom, as Jonathan Lyons explains in his new book, is “the notion that religion and science, faith and reason, could coexist.” KAUST aims to reflect this legacy for the advancement of Saudi Arabia and the world, making the region a hub for sustainable technologies and demonstrating the value of intercultural collaboration.
But it is also clear how strongly the KAUST vision is linked to King Abdullah. The King is 85 years old, and Saudi succession is uncertain. Ultimately KAUST’s success may depend on its ability to strike the right balance between protective control and open inquiry. Tangible technological and economic outcomes will be important in stirring the pride of the Saudi population as they turn to developing their rich human resources.
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Part II: Postcards from Saudi Arabia: The KAUST inauguration
Public photography was legalized in Saudi Arabia in 2006 by a royal decree, hailed as a step towards promoting tourism.
In spite of this, few tourists visit the Kingdom. Getting a visa is difficult, and most visitors are religious pilgrims, migrant workers, and foreigners who have family or business there. Yet some 2500 heads of state, business leaders, university officials, researchers, and prospective KAUST job candidates—and nearly 100 members of the media—poured into Jeddah last week for the KAUST inauguration.
Many of us looked for postcards to send to our friends and families, but there were none to be found! So for those interested in more informal impressions of the experience, I post a few here.
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Shopping malls are an important hub for public recreation in Saudi Arabia. Though in many “public” places, like at this Starbucks, there are semi-private areas for women and families. Some journalists and I visited this Jeddah mall to find gifts for our families. One colleague bought his daughter a Barbie-like doll. There were two categories to choose from: “indoor fashion” and “outdoor fashion” dolls.
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KAUST arranged a tour to the Altayebat International City for Sciences and Knowledge, where the knowledgeable staff explained their impressive collections of regional art and artifacts. This architectural engineer designed some amazing exhibitions of Saudi Arabia’s natural regions and heritage. While enjoying the air conditioning, I was completely surrounded the sand, water, wildlife, culture, and sky of the Red Sea! KAUST CORNEA 3-D visualization team–you guys should check this out!
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As the KAUST campus cannot yet support big groups of visitors, we stayed in Jeddah hotels and made the hour-long escorted bus trip each day. As we approached the campus, we passed giant billboards heralding KAUST, flags from around the world, multiple security checkpoints, and workers landscaping the roadside.
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The campus was stunning! The journalists would have liked to have toured more of it, but our access was restricted to a few buildings.
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The library has the most inspiring view of the Red Sea. Most of its holdings have not yet arrived, but it already had an impressive collection of general books. Works by Edward Said and Noam Chomsky were subtly displayed. The media spent many hours here drinking coffee while security was ensured for King Abdullah’s visit.
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Catching a ride back to Jeddah with a staff member, I managed to catch a glimpse of a finished condo, thoughtfully furnished with everything from Internet access to frying pans—the cupboards were even stocked with food. We stopped to fill the tank–gas at KAUST would have cost 0.60 Saudi Arabian riyal/liter, except that it, too, was free. (I calculated $0.61/gallon and realized—the riyal is pegged to the dollar at the liter/gallon ratio!)
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Guests filled a gigantic air-conditioned tent specially erected for the KAUST inauguration. Just as striking as the research exhibitions was the mix of guests: Saudi men in tailored white thobes, Western men in smart dark suits, Saudi women in abayas and hijab, Western women in colorful skirt suits or long evening gowns peeking out from underneath their abayas. The PR firm had suggested I wear a suit, but I felt more comfortable in my elegant borrowed abaya.
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Eight curvy plasma screens spanned the massive auditorium. The lights dimmed, and short film segments introduced KAUST’s mission, philosophy, and people. Each film chapter was introduced with a proverb. “Hearts filled with faith,” one read, “are the foundation of each vision and the source for all truth.” KAUST students, clustered in the back of the auditorium, whooped and applauded when their friends appeared on screen.
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Following speeches by KAUST officials and the Saudi Arabian national anthem, King Abdullah took the podium. In his speech, the King compared KAUST to the “House of Wisdom” and extolled the value of international collaboration in education and research.
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After King Abdullah’s address, the plasma screens parted and receded to reveal the Red Sea. Massive fireworks erupted over KAUST’s signature “Breakwater Beacon,” and were joined by dancing fountains (easily surpassing the Bellagio in Las Vegas). Beaming Saudis and world-weary foreign correspondents smiled at each other, pleased to be sharing this experience.
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Following the banquet, we waited for hours for our assigned buses back to Jeddah. University leaders and journalists lingered over Arabic sweets and cans of 7-up with Saudi Aramco and KAUST employees. I finally made it back to the hotel at 4 a.m., nearly 22 hours after the media security check began. The scrappier correspondents, on breaks from demanding Middle Eastern posts, had elbowed and cajoled their way onto earlier buses.
Kimberly Coulter
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Editor’s note: see below for a YouTube clip of the noted fireworks segment:
Editor’s note: this contribution, by Christopher Ziguras examines the complex factors shaping ongoing debates, and recent crisis, about Indian students in Australia. Christopher Ziguras (pictured to the right) is Associate Professor of International Studies in the School of Global Studies, Social Science and Planning, RMIT, Melbourne. His research focuses on international education policy, particularly related to higher education in the Asia Pacific region. Dr Ziguras teaches within the Global Studies discipline at RMIT University. He was a founding member of the Globalism Research Centre and has continued to be closely involved with the Centre since its establishment in 2002. He manages the Learning Cities program within RMIT’s Global Cities Research Institute, and established RMIT’s Research in International and Comparative Education (RICE) network in 2007. Our thanks to Chris for his illuminating contribution.
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Eventually something had to give. The number of Indian students coming to study in Australia had been growing for several years at extraordinary rates, and nobody expected the bubble to last. But it was difficult to predict what would trigger the collapse.
In 2002 there was just over 11,000 Indian students in Australia, and by 2005 this number had grown to over 27,000. Australia is accustomed to such sudden surges in demand from particular countries, and this number was still a very small proportion of the total international student population of around 400,000 in 2005. However, by last year enrolments had grown even more rapidly up to nearly 100,00 students, and most of the growth was in private vocational colleges where enrolments of Indian students increased at a startling rate, from 2,600 to 47,400 in three years.
VET = Vocational Education and Training (postsecondary certificate and diploma programs from one to four semesters duration)
ELICOS = English Language Intensive Courses for Overseas Students
Higher Education = degree level and graduate programs
Other includes private higher education and public and private primary and secondary schools
(Data source: Australian Education International)
Up until around 2005 most Indian students seeking permanent residency in Australia undertook masters programs, usually in information technology and accounting. This was a perfectly rational response to the key planks of Australia’s skilled migration framework, which seeks to identify those occupations where graduates are in high demand in the labour market, and prioritises applicants with Australian tertiary qualifications, who in the past have been shown to been more successful in the labour market than migrants with overseas qualifications. So Indian students quite rightly reasoned, “I would like to live in Australia and Australia wants accounting graduates so I will do an accounting degree and stay on in Australia”. Enrolments of international students in programs that enabled students to obtain residence (subject to various other conditions), grew very rapidly. In 2004-05 three quarters Indian students graduating from Australian university programs obtained permanent residency.[1]
The only problem with this had been that many international graduates in these areas of migration demand were not subsequently employed in the fields for which they had studied. Migration requirements were tightened to mandate higher levels of English proficiency and professional experience, and these had the effect of dampening demand somewhat for some university programs.
In 2005 the Australian government increased the number of points international graduates needed to obtain permanent residency, meaning that many international students had to undertake further studies in an area of migration demand that would provide extra points. A number of trades (including hairdressing) had been included on the occupations in demand list for some time, and soon after raising the number of points required cooking was added to the list of occupations for which extra points would be awarded. Private colleges responded quickly be developing new cooking and hairdressing programs that would give students enough points to get through. Some private colleges are very high quality institutions with a wide range of programs for local and international students, but there are low quality providers who cater almost exclusively to international students seeking fast and easy qualifications to support migration applications.[2] By last year, 14,400 Indian students were studying in private colleges in programs grouped under the ‘food, hospitality and personal services’ classification, accounting more than a quarter of all students in these programs.
For several years many in the Australian international education industry have been warning that the rapid growth of private colleges providers focused on migration pathway programs posed serious threats to vulnerable students, who were sometimes willing to pay hefty fees and tolerate poor facilities and teaching in return for a piece of paper that would assist them to gain residency. There was also a concern that the actions of these colleges could bring the entire Australian education system into disrepute internationally. The industry group representing private educational institutions, the Australian Council for Private Education and Training, was the most outspoken voice calling for more active investigation and prosecution of substandard providers, recognising that the organisation’s members had most to lose from the actions of rogue providers.[3]
Enrolments in migration oriented programs in private colleges continued to grow, with no sign of slowing, however, the numbers of students in certain programs was beginning to far exceed Australia’s workforce requirements in those occupations. The head of the Professional Hairdressers Association complained last year that private colleges were “bastardising the industry”, by taking in large numbers of international students intending to apply for permanent residency, very few of whom intended to work in the industry.[4] This situation has been compounded by rising unemployment in Australia, as elsewhere. A significant tightening of the student migration policy appears inevitable, but would be devastating for tens of thousands of young people who had invested heavily in study in Australia only to return home with qualifications of very limited value in their home country after wasting much time and money chasing permanent residency.
Australia’s Indian student bubble appears now to have been popped, but by thugs rather than by government. After the terrible attacks on Indian international students, and the extensive media coverage in India, the number of Indian students coming to Australia is expected to drop dramatically.
Last year there were several cases of violent attacks on Indian taxi drivers, which led to highly publicised street protests. At around 3:00 am on 29 April 2008 a 23 year-old Indian international student, Jalvinder Singh, working as a taxi driver in Melbourne was stabbed by a passenger. The following night Indian taxi drivers staged a 24-hour protest blocking one of the city’s most prominent intersections, calling for improved security for drivers, including security screens to be installed in all taxis, and for improved security around suburban railway stations.[5]
The state government agreed to phase in security screens and to fully investigate all attacks. A 45 year-old man was charged with attempted murder. On 18 May 2008 in Adelaide an Indian international student, Balraj Singh, driving a taxi was assaulted late at night by two 24 year-old men, who were subsequently charged with aggravated assault and robbery. Hundreds of taxi drivers staged protests in Adelaide, with similar demands to the Melbourne protests.
There has been a long history of violent attacks against taxi drivers in Australia, but what has changed is the ethnic composition of the workforce. A very large proportion of taxi drivers are now Indian, and the more experienced drivers, who are usually from more established migrant communities, tend to work day shifts while Indian students who study during the day and have less ability to pick and choose their shifts, are left to work night shifts, especially on weekends, which are notoriously dangerous. After the Adelaide attach the head of the Cab Drivers Association told local media, “We’ve got drivers out there that are not properly trained that the government refuses to recognise this – it’s a critical issue in inflaming these assaults. We are exploiting our immigrants by getting them to become cheap labour in the taxi industry…. I mean we should have the decency at least to train them properly, to skill them on what sort of situations they could face out there and we should have more interest in the work environment.”[6] These attacks led to discussions between the Indian consul general, South Australian government and police, as well as taxi industry, and drivers’ representatives.[7] However, while some branches of government were working hard to try to improve driver security, many international students driving taxis were in fear of immigration authorities who were carrying out inspections at taxi ranks to ensure that international students were not working more than the 20 hour limit imposed by student visas.[8]
Last year the attacks seemed confined to taxi drivers, but in 2009 a series of serious assaults against Indian students in a one-month period in Melbourne and Sydney resulted in street protests in both cities and a media storm in India, with serious political repercussions in both countries. On 9 May Sourabh Sharma, 21, a hospitality management student was beaten up on a train by a group of teenagers. He was returning home in the evening after a shift at KFC.[9] Four teenagers were charged over the assault. Security video footage of the attack, made public later in May, was broadcast extensively in Australia and India, showing a group of teenage boys who appeared to be of diverse racial backgrounds repeatedly punching and kicking Sourabh, who sustained a broken jaw and extensive bruising from the attack. On 25 May Baljinder Singh, 25, an Indian cookery student, was stabbed in the stomach in an attempted robbery while leaving a suburban railway station.[10] The following day four Indian students were attacked when a birthday party at their home was gatecrashed by two teenage boys. One of the students, Sravan Kumar Theerthala, 25, who studied automotive technology in a private college, was stabbed in the head with a screwdriver by one of the intruders, putting him in a coma. A 17 year-old has been charged with attempted murder.
Photographs of Kumar and Singh, one unconscious in hospital with head bandaged and tubes protruding from his nose and mouth, the other on a hospital bed displaying a large bandaged stab wound, were shown prominently on Indian television and in newspapers. Television current affairs programs and newspaper editorials speculated about the root causes of this apparent “wave of racist attacks”. Was this caused by Australian resentment at India’s growing status in the world and the newfound affluence of Indians abroad, some asked. As stories of previous assaults on Indians in Australia emerged others asked whether the Australian media had been covering up these racist attacks.
The political response in India was fast and furious. On 29 May Australia’s High Commissioner to India was summoned to a meeting with Overseas Indian Affairs Minister Vayalar Ravi, who urged Australia to ensure the events were not repeated.[11] India’s High Commissioner to Australia travelled to Melbourne to convey her government’s concern to Victorian police, government and educational representatives. The Prime Ministers and the Foreign Ministers of the two countries discussed the issue with their counterparts, all expressing their abhorrence at the attacks. On 30 May Indian film star Amitabh Bachchan announced he would turn down an honorary doctorate from the Queensland University of Technology that he had previously agreed to accept.[12] On 6 June Bollywood’s largest union, the Federation of Western India Cine Employees called on its members to stop filming in Australia, its leader proclaiming, “We prefer to call it a non-cooperation movement because we feel what is happening in Australia is painful and shameful. The Australian government is just not taking adequate steps to find the culprits”.[13] This comes after a string of big-budget Bollywood films have been filmed and set in Australia in recent years.
In Australia, the response was quite different. Violent attacks by young men against other young men are not uncommon occurrences, and as around one in three people living in Melbourne and Sydney was born outside Australia it is very common for either the victim or perpetrator to be a foreigner. In Australia debate hinged on whether the attacks were racially motivated, that is whether some young men (of various ethnic backgrounds) were targeting Indian students, or whether Indian students were finding themselves in the wrong places at the wrong times. For example, one senior editor with the Australian newspaper criticized the Victorian government for downplaying the racist character of the attacks, while other articles in that newspaper have pointed to the diverse ethnic and racial backgrounds of the perpetrators of the attacks. While there are some young Anglo-Australian men who are xenophobic and who have mounted ugly demonstrations against the “invasion” of their suburbs by immigrants (most famously in Cronulla in Sydney), there has been little indication that these particular assaults were motivated by such white racist backlash, though some surely are. The “survival tips” put forward by an Indian graduate from an Adelaide university paint a frightening picture of the threat posed by violent white teenagers.[14] The student’s advice, titled ‘Adopt their culture without compromising on yours’, concludes that “Mostly all matured Australians are quite friendly with a great sense of humour. The whole Australian community should not be judged just because of the behaviour and the manners of some of the most ill bred Aussie teenagers.”
A major incident in early June in Sydney highlighted the complexity of the racial issues. On 8 and 9 June Indian students staged large protests in a low-income neighbourhood where in recent years Indians have surpassed Lebanese as the largest ethnic group. The protests were sparked by an attack on an Indian student by a group of young men of Middle Eastern background. Indian students claimed that the police were not doing enough to protect them from Lebanese gangs. Indian protesters attacked three uninvolved Lebanese men and police brought in the reinforcements to control the crowd.
(Students at a Melbourne private college participate in the city’s ‘Harmony Walk’, held in response to attacks on Indian international students, photograph: Christopher Ziguras)
But why Indian students? Nearly half a million international students studied in Australia last year, but Indian students seem to be suffering the most from violent attacks. Some research has suggested that many of the Indian students who are attracted to vocational programs in private colleges are from less affluent backgrounds, and have lower levels of English language proficiency, compared with those who enrol in university programs. These students are able to obtain loans with which they can pass the financial means test to obtain a student visa to Australia, but they are understandably reluctant to draw down on those loans and instead seek to earn enough in Australia to pay their tuition fees and living expenses. Compared with other international students in Australia, students from India appear to be more dependent upon income from shift work, such as driving taxis, stacking supermarket shelves, and working in convenience stores and as security guards. They are more likely to be living in outer suburbs with cheaper housing, and therefore travelling late on trains more often, and in areas where street violence is more common. Gender is an issue too, as assaults against strangers on and around public transport are generally perpetrated by young men on other young men, the vast majority of Indian students are male whereas East and South East Asian students are evenly split by gender. As a result one would expect a greater rate of assaults against Indian students.
In a subsequent post I will discuss the responses of Australian federal and state governments, which have been diverse and ever-expanding. What started with a damage-control response to publicity about violence against students from India may well lead to significant changes in international education policy, with most attention being focused on some private colleges and their overseas agents, and many people asking how Australia’s major cities can better ensure the safety and security of the hundreds of thousands of young people from abroad who study in Australia each year.
International Partnerships: A Legal Guide for UK Universities, written by international law firm Eversheds, is designed as a practical ‘route map’ which gathers together in one place all the issues that need to be considered by a university serious about doing business abroad and getting it right from start to finish.
Key features of the guide include:
* Chapters on managing and documenting a partnership, including laying the groundwork, due diligence, troubleshooting and risk assessment with accompanying lists of ‘dos’ and ‘don’ts’.
* Guidance on what to do if things go wrong.
* Country-specific case studies detailing legal and higher education jurisdiction, (Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia, Qatar, UAE and USA)
Professor Rick Trainor, President of Universities UK, said, ‘International activities should protect and enhance a university’s brand, reputation and mission. Getting an international academic relationship right at the outset is always preferable to fixing mistakes later. It is my belief that this guide will prove to be of considerable and lasting practical use to our colleagues in the HE sector who are charged with establishing and running the full range of collaborative ventures with our counterparts abroad.’
Glynne Stanfield, partner and head of international education at Eversheds, said: ‘Having been involved in providing legal support to the International Unit at Universities UK since its inception, we are delighted to have produced a guide for the sector on international activities. We have seen a major increase in the international activities of universities over the last few years; we expect that trend to accelerate and we hope the guide assists universities to do so. As an international law firm we fully recognise the increasing importance to the UK of international activities particularly in education, one of the UK’s key export markets.’
International partnerships have, to date, been a success story for UK universities, but gone are the days when the terms of collaboration could be agreed between Vice-Chancellors on no more than a handshake. UK universities are sophisticated international collaborators and are increasingly taking account of legal issues when entering overseas partnerships. The guide conveys the complexities of the law in an accessible and readable format.
A fuller summary of the report is available in their newsletter (International Focus: 15/07/09), which includes the ‘lifecycle’ image below.
The UK Higher Education International Unit has been attempting, over the last several years, to support UK universities in the “internationalization” process through a range of activities, including:
Assembling timely and high quality data and information about international developments and movements in higher education, and adding value to them through research and analysis designed to develop foresight about international trends and their potential impact on UK HEIs;
Making the results of this work readily available to UK HEIs and providing a meeting point for the sharing of information about globalisation, and the discussion of issues that arise;
Helping to ensure that there is joined-up thinking and appropriate co-ordination between the range of UK organisations involved in international activity related to higher education, thereby increasing its impact and helping to advance the reputation of UK higher education in overseas countries.
This institution emerged in the context of the increasing dependency of UK universities on foreign student-derived revenue, the enhanced involvement of UK universities abroad (with respect to both teaching and research), and the desire of the UK higher education sector to ensure that UK universities are strategic in the context of the emergence of the European Higher Education Area.
It is interesting to note that this detailed 196 page report can only be read by officials representing UK universities, who can access it at this password-protected site. Following a 12 month UK uni-only phase, the report becomes available for general consumption, and is free.
The issue of general access to informative reports like this one, or reports commissioned by similar organizations in other countries, is shaped by actual and perceived needs to service stakeholders who fund the commissioning agency, the competitive impulse, and historical policy legacies regarding distribution. Yet we have detected a broad trend towards free, immediate, and open access to these types of reports, in part because of the administrative costs of printing, charging and distributing lengthy reports, but also recognition that the global higher ed landscape is evolving so fast that everyone can benefit from enhanced understandings of how to (re)shape the development process. International partnerships are, after all, about partnership. This is a long-winded way of suggesting that organizations like the UK Higher Education International Unit, and the American Council on Education’s Center for International Initiatives, should seriously consider adopting an open access policy for relevant reports. Such an approach would enhance the nature of the collaborative development process, and better ensure institutions in other countries understand the logics and rationales — the modi operandi — associated with UK and US partners. There might be some forgone revenue or other costs, yet the broader benefits of sharing knowledge, in a timely and open fashion, as well as the symbolic messages sent out, are well worth considering.
Kris Olds
ps: I should add that the UK Higher Education International Unit kindly sent me a copy of the report, so this is not a whinge to get a copy, but an indirect note of appreciation regarding the quality of the report. :)
The free 52 page report, which is available in PDF format in English, Arabic and Chinese, is worth reading - for even if you are not interested in partnering with UK universities, the report helpfully sets out a series of issues worth thinking about in general at both the university level (i.e. how to frame and implement partnerships) as well as the larger system-wide scale.
