A Columbia University/Millennium Promise response to ‘A question (about universities, global challenges, and an organizational-ethical dilemma)’

Editors’ note: today’s guest entry has been kindly developed by Dr. Lucia Rodriguez, director of the Global Master’s in Development Practice Secretariat, Columbia University. For the past 20 years Dr. Rodriguez (pictured to the right) has been involved in the field of education, including at Teachers College and the Department of Bilingual/Bicultural Education (Columbia University), and the United Nations Association of the USA (UNA-USA). A native of Cuba, Dr. Rodriguez completed her undergraduate work at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and received her Doctorate in Education from Teachers College, Columbia University.

Dr. Rodriguez’s entry focuses on an innovative global educational initiative that has much potential to generate substantive, organizational, pedagogical and technological lessons. The Global Master’s in Development Practice (MDP) is a two-year graduate degree program involving the participation of 22 universities around the world. Further information about the MDP is available below, and also in ‘Some Important Lessons for Global Academic Innovation’ by John W. McArthur (Huffington Post, 17 May 2010) and ‘Needed: a New Generation of Problem Solvers‘ by John W. McArthur and Jeffrey Sachs (Chronicle of Higher Education, 18 June 2009). Our sincere thanks to Dr. Rodriquez, and John W. McArthur and Vibhuti Jain (both of Millennium Promise), for enabling the development of this entry.

This entry is the sixth response to Nigel Thrift’s ‘A question (about universities, global challenges, and an organizational, ethical dilemma)‘. The first five entries were provided by the people below and can be linked to via their names:

• Peter N. Stearns (Provost, George Mason University)
• Gregor McLennan (Professor of Sociology and Director of the Institute of Advanced Studies, University of Bristol)
• David J. Skorton (President, Cornell University)
• Daniel I. Linzer (Provost, Northwestern University)
• Allan E. Goodman (President & CEO, Institute of International Education)

Finally, please note that we will continue to welcome proposals for responses to Nigel Thrift’s ‘A question‘ through to the end of 2010.

Kris Olds & Susan Robertson

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Nigel Thrift’s recent post asked the question: Are the world’s universities doing all they can to prepare their students for the complex challenges facing this interconnected and interdependent global community?  Speaking as the director of the Global Master’s in Development Practice Secretariat, I believe that, although progress has occurred, much more is needed.

We are, indeed, in an urgent situation where the role of universities needs to be clarified if they are to tackle successfully the task of preparing global citizens, workers and leaders.  This urgency to innovate, to think “outside of the box,” to do things differently is the thing for which thousands of the world’s suffering people are clamoring.

Extreme Poverty and Urgent Need

Nihima, a fictitious name that represents many of the world’s most vulnerable children, epitomizes the challenges of the many voiceless people around the world in need of extreme intervention.  Like many poor people, Nihima spends her days sprawled on a mud floor with dried leaves for a roof.  She is a 13-year-old girl who recounts, through tears of despair, her life as the oldest sister, and now main caregiver, of four brothers and sisters.  Her father left the family long ago. Her mother followed shortly after.  Both of them were swallowed by the big city with the promise of returning for the family after earning some money.  Four years later, nothing has been heard from either parent.

I met Nihima several years ago, abandoned and tired.  She shared the difficulties of being a sister-parent of four at the tender age of 13.  She does not go to school because she does not have shoes.  She spends most of the day begging for kernels of millet or dried cassava or whatever she can find to feed her brothers and sisters.  What little energy she has left she spends thinking of how to help her younger sister, a weak and sickly child.

Help did not come soon enough to Nihima’s hut.  All the help funneled into this rural village was well-intentioned, but not comprehensive enough.  Many of the people on the ground, the experts in education, health and agriculture deployed to economically depressed areas, could not go beyond offering solutions that were singularly focused and limiting, failing to address the broad challenges of sustainable development.

In her day-to-day struggles, Nihima is like many of the developing world’s destitute.  She joins more than half of the world’s population who live on less than $2 day.  She, too, is one of the millions of people who cannot read a book or sign their names.  And, if her socio-economic situation does not change soon, her brothers and sisters may join the many vulnerable children who make up the 8 million preventable disease fatalities that occur worldwide each year.

The Global Master’s in Development Practice Program

Universities have a role in training and developing the problem-solvers of the world.  In particular, we believe that practitioners, the people at the forefront of all of these global problems, need to be prepared to confront the multifaceted challenges of sustainable development.

The most disenfranchised people—the poor subsistence farmer, the urban slum dweller, the ailing HIV father and mother and their vulnerable children—need our help now.  For their survival, people like Nihima often depend on the professional knowledge, skills and attributes of development practitioners.  These professionals are often the only hope for poor, suffering people.  Although most practitioners have completed the most rigorous training in sustainable development, few are prepared for the complex challenges they will encounter in the field.  They realize that their knowledge or specialization in a particular area is not enough.  Once in the field, they understand that the interwoven challenges of sustainable development can be solved only by connecting insights from a range of disciplines.

It was this realization that more is needed and the urgency to bolster the leadership and training of development practitioners that brought eminent practitioners and academics across a range of development fields together.  Former Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo; global health leaders Helene Gayle, Jim Kim, and Jeffrey Koplan; former UNICEF Executive Director Ann Veneman; Nobel Laureate RK Pachauri; ground-breaking ecologist Virgilio Viana; prominent agronomists Freddie Kwesiga and Alice Pell; and African academic leaders Goolam Mohamedbhai and Livingstone Luboobi are some of those who collaborated.  As members of the International Commission on Education for Sustainable Development Practice, a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation-supported initiative, the Commission provided the insights and recommendations that led to the development of the global Master’s in Development Practice (MDP) programs.

The Global Master’s in Development Practice is a two-year graduate degree program providing students with the skills and knowledge required to better identify and address the global challenges of sustainable development, such as poverty, population, health, conservation, and climate change.  The MDP students take core courses in health sciences, natural sciences and engineering, social sciences and management.

In addition, MDP students take the Global Classroom: Integrated Approaches to Sustainable Development Practice course. This is an information technology-based, interactive course that fosters cross-border and cross-disciplinary collaboration and allows students and professors to participate in collective assignments and learning experiences.  For instance, the first “pilot” global classroom addressed a range of core issues from health, economics, policy, and agriculture, to ethics and education.  It involved the participation of 16 universities around the world.  All course materials, including the syllabus, readings, videos, and assignments, were uploaded to a common course website.  Commission members served as guest experts and provided taped lectures for each of the weekly sessions.  Students from around the world viewed the taped lectures in advance and then joined their classmates and professors for weekly, live sessions.  The weekly sessions were conducted through web-based conferencing software that enables partner universities to log-on free of charge.  Each participating classroom is then able to activate their camera.  The “global classroom” screen becomes filled with live videos of all of the partner universities.

Furthermore, all MDP students participate in two hands-on field training and internship experiences.  Only by broadening the MDP students’ educational and practical training will these students be able to more effectively understand and address the root causes of extreme poverty and confront the challenges of sustainable development.  For more information on the MDP curriculum, please go to www.globalmdp.org.

The Global Network of Master’s in Development Practice Programs

Two years after the launch of the International Commission on Education for Sustainable Development Practice report and its recommendations, the global network of MDP programs comprises 22 universities in 15 countries and five continents.  Many other academic institutions are soliciting membership into the network.  These universities are not only thinking about the question of how to address the various worldwide disparities, but are working together to address this problem.

The creation of the Master’s in Development Practice program acknowledges that addressing extreme poverty and sustainable development throughout the world requires a concerted effort by experts using a cross-disciplinary approach.  The first 22 universities in the network are:

1. BRAC Development Institute, BRAC University (Dhaka, Bangladesh)
2. CATIE (Turrialba, Costa Rica)
3. Columbia University (New York City, New York)
4. Emory University (Atlanta, Georgia)
5. James Cook University (Cairns and Townsville, Australia)
6. Sciences Po (Paris, France)
7. TERI (The Energy and Resources Institute) University (New Delhi, India)
8. Trinity College Dublin and University College Dublin (Dublin, Ireland)
9. Tsinghua University (Beijing, China)
10. Universidad de Los Andes (Bogota, Colombia)
11. Universidade Federal Rural do Rio de Janeiro (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)
12. University of Botswana (Gaborone, Botswana)
13. University of California, Berkeley (Berkeley, California)
14. University of California, Davis (Davis, California)
15. University of Cheikh Anta Diop, UCAD (Dakar, Senegal)
16. University of Denver (Denver, Colorado)
17. University of Florida (Gainesville, Florida)
18. University of Ibadan (Ibadan, Nigeria)
19. University of Peradeniya (Peradeniya, Sri Lanka)
20. University of Minnesota (Minneapolis, Minnesota)
21. University of Waterloo (Waterloo, Ontario)
22. University of Winnipeg (Winnipeg, Manitoba)

Columbia University accepted its first cohort of students in 2009. Twelve other universities will do the same this September and the remaining in 2011. Although the core MDP curriculum integrates the four pillars of health, natural, social and management sciences, each university approaches the MDP through a highly diverse set of curricular emphasis.  The University of Winnipeg, for example, focuses on indigenous populations and the University of Botswana offers an executive education-type program for full-time professionals who wish to complete the MDP degree while still working.  To learn more about each MDP program’s curricular focus, please go to www.globalmdp.org.

We anticipate that the several hundred MDP students trained each year will not only have a broader understanding of the challenges of development, but as leaders will be able to draw on their interdisciplinary training for both policy and practice insights.  They will be the “specialists” of interdisciplinary studies in the field of sustainable development who can speak and understand the language of the various development experts often found in the field working in isolation from one another.

These MDP graduates will go on to professional trajectories within government ministries, bi-lateral and multi-lateral donor organizations, non-governmental organizations, private sector companies, foundations, or UN agencies.  As practitioners, they will be able to propose solutions to the challenges of poverty that are informed by multidisciplinary and multisectoral perspectives.

Benefits of the Global Network

Imagine a student at Sciences Po participating in the MDP field experience organized by Universidade Federal Rural do Rio de Janeiro or a faculty member from the University of Ibadan teaching a course at Tsinghua University’s MDP program.   Through the global network of MDP programs, this and more will be possible.  MDP students and professors will be able to reap the benefits of a global network by participating in exchanges and field experiences offered by the various MDP programs.  In addition, it is expected that, all MDP programs will develop their own Global Classroom course on topics as varied as public health and agricultural systems, which will be offered to students at the 22 MDP programs in the global network.

Furthermore, in order to take advantage of the global resources these 22 universities offer and to ensure that all MDP students receive a rigorous and comprehensive education, the global network of MDP programs will also benefit from the development of an open-source online resource center.  Once developed, this resource center will welcome global contributions from the MDP programs and provide academic institutions with a comprehensive repository of MDP-related educational resources and tools, including case studies, lectures, and e-journals on sustainable development practice.

The benefits of participating in the global network are numerous.  The above-mentioned are just a few.  No longer can conservationist, water specialist, agronomist, and public health specialist working to alleviate poverty depend on narrow expertise alone.  Cross-disciplinary and cross-sectoral knowledge and rigorous, hands-on, field experiences are needed. Nigel Thrift can be certain that universities in the global network of MDP programs are doing all they can and more to prepare their students for the complex challenges facing this interconnected and interdependent global community.

Lucia Rodriguez

From rhetoric to reality: unpacking the numbers and practices of global higher ed

Numbers, partnerships, linkages, and collaboration: some key terms that seem to be bubbling up all over the place right now.

On the numbers front, the ever active Cliff Adelman released, via the Institute for Higher Education Policy (IHEP), a new report titled The Spaces Between Numbers: Getting International Data on Higher Education Straight (November 2009). As the IHEP press release notes:

The research report, The Spaces Between Numbers: Getting International Data on Higher Education Straight, reveals that U.S. graduation rates remain comparable to those of other developed countries despite news stories about our nation losing its global competitiveness because of slipping college graduation rates. The only major difference—the data most commonly highlighted, but rarely understood—is the categorization of graduation rate data. The United States measures its attainment rates by “institution” while other developed nations measure their graduation rates by “system.”

The main target audience of this new report seems to be the OECD, though we (as users) of international higher ed data can all benefit from a good dig through the report. Adelman’s core objective is facilitating the creation of a new generation of indicators, indicators that are a lot more meaningful and policy-relevant than those that currently exist.

Second, Universities UK (UUK) released a data-laden report titled The impact of universities on the UK economy. As the press release notes:

Universities in the UK now generate £59 billion for the UK economy putting the higher education sector ahead of the agricultural, advertising, pharmaceutical and postal industries, according to new figures published today.

This is the key finding of Universities UK’s latest UK-wide study of the impact of the higher education sector on the UK economy. The report – produced for Universities UK by the University of Strathclyde – updates earlier studies published in 1997, 2002 and 2006 and confirms the growing economic importance of the sector.

The study found that, in 2007/08:

• The higher education sector spent some £19.5 billion on goods and services produced in the UK.
• Through both direct and secondary or multiplier effects this generated over £59 billion of output and over 668,500 full time equivalent jobs throughout the economy. The equivalent figure four years ago was nearly £45 billion (25% increase).
• The total revenue earned by universities amounted to £23.4 billion (compared with £16.87 billion in 2003/04).
• Gross export earnings for the higher education sector were estimated to be over £5.3 billion.
• The personal off-campus expenditure of international students and visitors amounted to £2.3 billion.

Professor Steve Smith, President of Universities UK, said: “These figures show that the higher education sector is one of the UK’s most valuable industries. Our universities are unquestionably an outstanding success story for the economy.

See pp 16-17 regarding a brief discussion of the impact of international student flows into the UK system.

These two reports are interesting examples of contributions to the debate about the meaning and significance of higher education vis a vis relative growth and decline at a global scale, and the value of a key (ostensibly under-recognized) sector of the national (in this case UK) economy.

And third, numbers, viewed from the perspectives of pattern and trend identification, were amply evident in a new Thomson Reuters’ report (CHINA: Research and Collaboration in the New Geography of Science) co-authored by the data base crunchers from Evidence Ltd., a Leeds-based firm and recent Thomson Reuters acquisition. One valuable aspect of this report is that it unpacks the broad trends, and flags key disciplinary and institutional geographies to China’s new geography of science. As someone who worked at the National University of Singapore (NUS) for four years, I can understand why NUS is now China’s No.1 institutional collaborator (see p. 9), though the why issues are not discussed in this type of broad mapping cum PR report for Evidence & Thomson Reuters.

Shifting tack, two new releases about international double and joint degrees — one (The Graduate International Collaborations Project: A North American Perspective on Joint and Dual Degree Programs) by the North American Council of Graduate Schools (CGS), and one (Joint and Double Degree Programs: An Emerging Model for Transatlantic Exchange) by the International Institute for Education (IIE) and the Freie Universität Berlin — remind us of the emerging desire to craft more focused, intense and ‘deep’ relations between universities versus the current approach which amounts to the promiscuous acquisition of hundreds if not thousands of memoranda of understanding (MoUs).

The IIE/Freie Universität Berlin book (link here for the table of contents) addresses various aspects of this development process:

The book seeks to provide practical recommendations on key challenges, such as communications, sustainability, curriculum design, and student recruitment. Articles are divided into six thematic sections that assess the development of collaborative degree programs from beginning to end. While the first two sections focus on the theories underpinning transatlantic degree programs and how to secure institutional support and buy-in, the third and fourth sections present perspectives on the beginning stages of a joint or double degree program and the issue of program sustainability. The last two sections focus on profiles of specific transatlantic degree programs and lessons learned from joint and double degree programs in the European context.

It is clear that international joint and double degrees are becoming a genuine phenomenon; so much so that key institutions including the IIE, the CGS, and the EU are all paying close attention to the degrees’ uses, abuses, and efficacy. Thus we should view this new book as an attempt to both promote, but in a manner that examines the many forces that shape the collaborative process across space and between institutions. International partnerships are not simple to create, yet they are being demanded by more and more stakeholders.  Why?  Dissatisfaction that the rhetoric of ‘internationalization’ does not match up to the reality, and there is a ‘deliverables’ problem.

Indeed, we hosted some senior Chinese university officials here in Madison several months ago and they used the term “ghost MoUs”, reflecting their dissatisfaction with filling filing cabinet after filing cabinet with signed MoUs that lead to absolutely nothing. In contrast, engagement via joint and double degrees, for example, or other forms of partnership (e.g., see International partnerships: a legal guide for universities), cannot help but deepen the level of connection between institutions of higher education on a number of levels. It is easy to ignore a MoU, but not so easy to ignore a bilateral scheme with clearly defined deliverables, a timetable for assessment, and a budget.

The value of tangible forms of international collaboration was certainly on view when I visited Brandeis University earlier this week.  Brandeis’ partnership with Al-Quds University (in Jerusalem) links “an Arab institution in Jerusalem and a Jewish-sponsored institution in the United States in an exchange designed to foster cultural understanding and provide educational opportunities for students, faculty and staff.”  Projects undertaken via the partnership have included administrative exchanges, academic exchanges, teaching and learning projects, and partnership documentation (an important but often forgotten about activity). The level of commitment to the partnership at Brandeis was genuinely impressive.

In the end, as debates about numbers, rankings, partnerships, MoUs — internationalization more generally — show us, it is only when we start grinding through the details and ‘working at the coal face’ (like Brandeis and Al-Quds seem to be doing), though in a strategic way, can we really shift from rhetoric to reality.

Kris Olds

US-European academic collaboration via transatlantic joint and dual degree programs

Back in May 2008, we profiled a call for input into a survey by the US-based Institute of International Education (IIE) and the Germany-based Freie Universität Berlin regarding joint and dual/double degrees (see ‘Special survey on transatlantic joint and dual/double degree programs’). We’re interested in this phenomenon as it helps to suture together and de-nationalize, albeit unevenly, higher education systems, institutions, pedagogical practices, and learning outcomes. See, for example, the insights developed in these three guest entries for GlobalHigherEd:

• ‘Engaging globally through joint and dual degrees: the graduate experience‘ (by Diana B. Carlin, Dean-in-Residence and Director of International Outreach, US Council of Graduate Schools)
• ‘Engaging globally through joint and double degree programmes: a view from Singapore‘ (by Lily Kong, Vice-President (University and Global Relations), National University of Singapore)
• ‘Engaging globally through dual degree programs: SUNY in Turkey‘ (by Kavita Pandit, Senior Vice Provost, State University of New York (SUNY) System Administration)

The IIE/ Freie Universität Berlin survey results have just been posted here and here. I’ve pasted in the full press release, below, for those who want a summary of the free report before deciding if it should be downloaded.

New Survey Examines U.S.-European Academic Collaboration
Research Report Provides Data on Transatlantic Joint and Dual Degree Programs

NEW YORK and BERLIN, January 22, 2009 — In today’s global economy, professional collaboration with colleagues and customers in other countries is important for successful careers in business, government and academia. A new study by the Institute of International Education (IIE) and the Freie Universität Berlin finds that universities on both sides of the Atlantic are working to establish more international joint and dual degree programs to make their campuses more international and better prepare their students, but participation in and support for such endeavors varies widely among institutions and countries. In particular, the study found that European campuses currently offer twice as many collaborative degrees, and European students are more likely to participate than their U.S. counterparts. The fact that 87% of respondents said that they wanted to develop more joint and dual degree programs attests to the growing importance of this form of academic cooperation.

A new report, “Joint and Double Degree Programs in the Transatlantic Context,” released today by IIE and Freie Universität Berlin, examines the key findings of an extensive survey conducted in spring 2008, based on responses from 180 higher education institutions in the United States and the European Union. The report assesses the current landscape of transatlantic degree programs and identifies inherent challenges and opportunities of expanding existing or developing new programs. It is available for download at: www.iie.org or at www.tdp-project.de.

The survey and report are part of a project sponsored by the “European Union-United States Atlantis Program” jointly administered and funded by the U.S. Department of Education’s Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE) and the European Commission’s Directorate General for Education and Culture. The project was launched in cooperation with several leading U.S. and European institutions: the Institute of International Education and the State University of New York (in the U.S.), and Freie Universität Berlin, the Franco-German University, and the Latvian Rectors’ Council (in the E.U.).

Later this year, the project partners will also publish a Transatlantic Degree Programs (TDP) Manual for Institutions, which is intended to serve as a key resource to institutions who wish to build or expand transatlantic joint or dual degree programs. Individual articles will provide practical recommendations on removing barriers and overcoming challenges in the development of these types of programs and highlight key issues related to establishing, managing and sustaining collaborative degree programs with a particular focus on the transatlantic context. Faculty members and university administrators with experience in developing and maintaining joint and dual/double degree programs are invited to submit articles to the Manual. Deadline for submitting articles is March 15, 2009. A call for papers is available on the websites mentioned above.

Major findings of Joint and Dual/Double Degree Programs in the Transatlantic Context report include:

• European institutions are about twice as likely to offer at least one joint degree as U.S. institutions and offer about twice as many such degrees as U.S. institutions.
• U.S. students are less likely than European students to participate in collaborative degree programs.
• Top 5 partner countries for European institutions: United States, France, Spain, Germany and the UK. Top 5 partner countries for U.S. institutions: Germany, China, France, Mexico, South Korea/Spain
• The most popular academic disciplines for collaborative degree programs are Business and Management and Engineering.
• English is by far the most commonly used language of instruction, but the majority of responding institutions indicate that their programs offered language training both at home and abroad.
• Dual or double degrees appear to be much more common than joint degrees.
• U.S. institutions are much more likely to cover costs with student fees than European institutions. EU institutions tend to draw more funding from university budgets and external sources (such as foundations, governments, etc).
• A large majority of responding institutions plan to continue to develop more joint and dual/double degrees.
• The motivations for launching joint and dual/double degree programs appear to revolve largely around advancing the internationalization of the campus and raising international visibility and prestige of the institution.
• The most important challenges for both EU and U.S. institutions appear to be securing adequate funding, and ensuring sustainability of the program. U.S. institutions also report challenges in securing institutional support and recruiting students, while EU institutions are more likely to encounter difficulties in designing the curriculum and agreeing on credit transfer recognition.

The Atlantis Program also sponsors a grant competition to promote a student-centered, transatlantic dimension to higher education and training in a wide range of academic and professional disciplines. The program will fund collaborative efforts to develop programs of study leading to joint or dual undergraduate or graduate degrees. The deadline to apply for 2009 grants is March 23, 2009. Information on the Atlantis Program and the application process is available at: www.ed.gov/programs/fipseec/index.html or http://eacea.ec.europa.eu/extcoop/usa/2009/call_us_eu_2009.htm

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Note that the US Council of Graduate Schools is also working on a report regarding such degrees, clearly highlighting a surge in interest in all aspects of their development, operation, and efficacy.

Kris Olds

Special survey on transatlantic joint and dual/double degree programs (1 May deadline)

The long history of transatlantic higher education relations has resulted in a myriad of impacts, including the formation of now iconic American institutions (e.g., Johns Hopkins University), core concepts underlying academic life (e.g., academic freedom), the protection of scholars at risk (e.g., the University in Exile), the rapid growth of universities in the 1960s and 1970s as European professors filled the posts needed to support a burgeoning student population, and the research capacity today of both Canada and the US (something the EU is seeking to track via their ERA-Link program).

The transatlantic relationship has evolved, of course, and now includes a growing number of joint and dual/double degree programs. This said virtually no one has a broad understanding of the nature nor impact of these programs.

Given this lacunae of knowledge, and given the significant interest demonstrated in our series regarding international double and joint degrees:

• ‘Engaging globally through joint and dual degrees: the graduate experience‘ (by Diana B. Carlin, Dean-in-Residence and Director of International Outreach, US Council of Graduate Schools)
• ‘Engaging globally through joint and double degree programmes: a view from Singapore‘ (by Lily Kong, Vice-President (University and Global Relations), National University of Singapore)
• ‘Engaging globally through dual degree programs: SUNY in Turkey‘ (by Kavita Pandit, Senior Vice Provost, State University of New York (SUNY) System Administration)

we are happy to support the Freie Universität Berlin (via their Transatlantic Degree Programs Project (TDP), and the Institute of International Education (IIE), as they coordinate a special survey on transatlantic joint and dual/double degree programs.

The survey is available here, and the responses are due by May 1. Please consider filling the survey out if you have established or manage such degrees.

As the survey organizers put it:

The overall goal of the survey is to assess the current landscape of transatlantic degree programs, identify inherent challenges and opportunities of expanding existing or developing new programs, and to solicit best practices. So far, there is only limited information available on the number and types of transatlantic programs, the higher education institutions involved in developing these programs, and the disciplines in which such programs have been established. This survey aims to fill that gap and create an inventory of existing models and examples of transatlantic curriculum cooperation.

By collecting this information, we hope to provide valuable information for higher education professionals and policymakers on the current transatlantic degree programs landscape, including an analysis of the challenges and barriers to developing them and recommendations and guidelines for universities on both sides of the Atlantic to implement successful programs.

The survey results will be used to create an International Degree Programs Manual. Codification and guidance (via manuals) brings with it pros and cons, but we can all benefit from enhancing our understanding on this emerging phenomenon, especially given the incredible amount of energy required to bring these degrees to life.

Kris Olds & Susan Robertson

Engaging globally through joint and dual degrees: the graduate experience

Editor’s note: this guest entry has been kindly produced by Diana B. Carlin, Dean-in-Residence and Director of International Outreach, Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) and former Dean of the Graduate School and International Programs, University of Kansas from 2000-2007. At Kansas she oversaw over 100 graduate programs on three campuses and the Offices of International Programs, Study Abroad, Applied English, and International Student and Scholar Services. During her tenure, Kansas developed joint and dual graduate degrees in France and Korea. She reported on trends in joint/dual degree development at an international conference (the “Strategic Leaders Global Summit on Graduate Education“) co-hosted by CGS and the Province of Alberta, Canada in August 2007.

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Other postings on GlobalHigherEd (see ‘Engaging globally through joint and double degree programmes: a view from Singapore’ and ‘Engaging globally through dual degree programs: SUNY in Turkey’) have presented model joint/dual degree programs at the undergraduate level. Such degrees are gaining in popularity for graduate students as well (as are joint/dual graduate-level certificate programs). In fact, collaborative degrees have become one of the most popular session topics at meetings of the Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) and other gatherings of graduate education leaders. Graduate school deans are discovering increased interest among faculty and administrators to both expand their institution’s international opportunities for domestic graduate students and attract international students through collaborative degrees. Additionally, as international research collaborations become more common, future faculty and non-faculty researchers can begin developing overseas connections. Students from all participating institutions also benefit from exposure to world-class facilities and faculty.

The federal government has also been encouraging development of collaborative degrees. Funding agencies’ grant programs such as NSF’s IGERT (Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship) and PIRE (Partnerships for International Research and Education), and Atlantis/FIPSE (a joint European-US program) in the Department of Education.

While graduate joint/dual degree programs share many of the same advantages and structures, and must consider many of the same steps in development, as undergraduate degree programs, there are also some unique issues that require consideration and collaboration among graduate programs, the graduate school, and international offices.

Before considering the specific issues related to graduate-level dual and joint degree programs, readers might first be interested in knowing the extent to which current international collaborations exist and what the prospects are for future growth.

A CGS survey of graduate deans last summer found that 29% of the responding institutions had some type of collaborative degree or certificate arrangement with an international university. Respondents represented a high percentage of the U.S. universities that have the largest international student enrollment: nine of the ten institutions with the highest international enrollments responded, as did 84% of the largest 25. Nearly 56% of both the largest ten and the largest 50 institutions had at least one degree program, compared with only 22% of the institutions below the top 50. The top 50 institutions enroll approximately 41% of all international students. Thus, the results provide a relatively accurate trend among universities with high levels of international engagement.

European and Chinese universities headed the list of partners for master’s degree programs, with 39% and 24% of the collaborations respectively, while doctoral programs were primarily in Europe. Business degrees constituted the most popular field for master’s degrees with 44% of respondents reporting such collaborations; engineering was next with 35% of respondents. At the doctoral level engineering and physical science degrees were reported by 13% of the respondents. [The remaining responses can be found in the survey of graduate deans report.]

And it is clear that international collaborative degree programs are growing: when asked if the institutions had plans for new joint/dual degrees within the next two years, 24% answered affirmatively overall, and the percentages were even higher among the largest schools.

Now onto the unique issues alluded to above. The growing popularity of, and planned increases in, joint/dual degrees belies a set of concerns that faculty, graduate deans, and other administrators have. It is agreed that students, especially in business, engineering, and the sciences, will conduct their life’s work on a global stage and need preparation to do so. But it is also recognized that a program’s quality assurance and plans for long-term sustainability have to be considered during the initial planning stages.

Accreditation issues, especially for some professional degrees, become a factor as well (undergraduate programs in professional schools share some of these concerns). Collaborative program administrators have to learn how “memoranda of understanding” are prepared and how exchange agreements are structured. International offices have to become familiar with the aspects of a new graduate degree and its approval might differ from the institution’s practices for undergraduate programs.

The remainder of this posting presents some of the lessons learned by members of the graduate community who have worked through establishing joint and dual degrees.

The consensus of most graduate deans is that the best programs are those established with partner institutions that have existing relationships with the U.S. university or are familiar through long-term research collaborations among a group of faculty. Most agree that it is unwise to develop a degree program around the research interests of a single faculty member. In addition to regular program reviews, graduate degree collaborations would benefit from a review after two or three years and that the programs should have some type of “sunset” clause that the program is to be terminated if it does not produce the desired level of collaboration.

From my experience as a dean and from that of others, it is important to remember that no matter how long it takes to develop a program and how well it is conceived, there will always be issues that were overlooked and require negotiation or renegotiation. Something as simple as semester start and end dates can create problems, not to mention more difficult issues related to research projects and joint supervision of a thesis or dissertation. U.S. deans have discovered that it often takes scholarship funding to kick off a new program and to get the first cohort interested. They have also found that they often need to highlight successful existing programs to stakeholders in the approval process in order to allay concerns that could end a prospective alliance. Graduate degree programs often require a year just to work through various levels of approval; thus, program proponents need to be prepared to not promise anything until all of the agreements or memoranda of understanding are completed and signed.

Through sharing experiences at conferences, on list serves, and on blogs such as this, universities initiating their first collaborative graduate degree program can reduce the number of problems by knowing what to expect at the outset. The need for graduates who have collaborated with international partners or have spent some part of their careers outside the United States—regardless of what that career is—will only grow. As a result, study abroad is likely to grow at the graduate level and produce long-term relationships that will benefit students, the institutions, as well as society worldwide.

Diana Carlin

Engaging globally through joint and double degree programmes: a view from Singapore

Editor’s note: further to Kavita Pandit’s entry yesterday (‘Engaging globally through dual degree programs: SUNY in Turkey‘), Lily Kong‘s entry here also focuses on joint and double degree programmes, at the undergraduate level, though from the perspective of a senior administrator and scholar of cultural change who is based in Singapore. Lily Kong is Vice-President (University and Global Relations) for the National University of Singapore (NUS), and also Director of the Asia Research Institute. One of her previous entries in GlobalHigherEd focused on international consortia of universities. Both entries reflect NUS’ role as a relatively global university, partly spurred on by the nature of higher education policy in this Southeast Asian city-state, and partly by the forces underlying Singapore’s development process.

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International agendas for many universities today almost invariably include a student exchange/study abroad component. In fact, for some, setting and reaching a self-imposed target to send a certain proportion of each cohort on such programmes can become a consuming affair, never mind the quality of the actual experience.

Another common expression of the international ambitions of many universities is the facilitation of education tourism (perhaps described in more exalted ways). In many cases, students travel together under the care of a lecturer, learn about another country, but stay in their “environmental bubble”, remaining part of the large group from their home university and within a safe comfort zone.

There are other expressions yet of global ambitions among universities and while they are fraught with a range of difficulties, there are of course also many positive ways in which such programmes have been implemented, and from which students learn much.

In Singapore, not only do universities roll out programmes such as these, so too are secondary schools and junior colleges actively involved in promoting and facilitating such overseas experiences. In a country where overseas private travel for leisure is common and has been on the rise (any flight is a flight out of the country), the question that needs to be asked is how local HEIs can provide for stimulating and meaningful international experiences when many young people have literally been there and done that.

In the last three to four years, the National University of Singapore has negotiated joint and double degrees with overseas partners for undergraduate courses of study (preceding these by quite some years were graduate level joint/double degrees). They offer that qualitatively (and quantitatively) different experience for students, so they present a value proposition to many who had in their earlier years of education already gone on a short exchange to Australia or visited Shakespeare-land in a school group.

What a joint degree means and how it is different from a double/dual degree is not as common knowledge as I had previously assumed. When approaching other universities with the concept and proposal to explore possibilities, I have been surprised by how some with very explicit global/international rhetoric have never thought about these options.

The versions I am familiar with are as follows. A joint degree student spends the same amount of time obtaining the degree as a single degree student, and about half the period of candidature is spent in a partner institution. He/she obtains a single degree with two university imprimaturs upon graduation. A double/dual degree student usually spends more time than required for a single degree but less time required for two separate degrees and obtains two degrees upon graduation. The time saved comes from “double-counting” some courses. Again, about half the total period of candidature is spent in the partner institution.

These joint and double degree programmes have been attractive for a variety of reasons for students at NUS. For those desirous of an overseas education/degree but for whom that is not possible (e.g. financial constraints, familial conditions), the shortened period overseas becomes a nice middle-ground. For those tentative but curious about a full overseas education, this too provides a comfortable combination. Others have recognized the advantages of two sets of educational, social and cultural experiences, and developing two sets of friendships and networks. And of course, the value of two degrees in less time or one degree from two prestigious institutions is a draw in itself. Indeed, this has become a significant part of NUS’ strategy to attract some of the brightest students in Singapore to study at NUS, and early indications are that it is working.

NUS now has joint undergraduate degrees with Australia National University (in physics, chemistry, mathematics, economics/actuarial studies, history, philosophy, English literature), the University of Melbourne (civil engineering), and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (in geography, political science, history, English literature, and economics).

The challenges of setting up these arrangements are not trivial. Often, the transaction costs are very high. Setting up the joint undergraduate degrees named above, for example, entailed many rounds of careful discussions and many levels of approvals at both institutions. The discussions and agreements have to penetrate to individual faculty in departments, whose curriculum and perhaps even pedagogies have to be modified. This is one of the first challenges, when university or college administrators wish for a variety of reasons to embark on these arrangements but need to have colleagues at the coalface who will be persuaded by their merits enough to work on them.

Setting up the structures and programmes is one thing. Encouraging and identifying appropriate students to sign up for these programmes is another. For Singapore, this has not been a problem. Students have for the most part been enthusiastic about the experience and opportunities that this affords, as mentioned above. But students in Australia and in the U.S. have seemed to need much more encouragement. The pastoral care dimension of students who move across state, social and cultural boundaries also needs careful attention.

Overall, the opportunities have been welcome by students at NUS, and this has been cited by a small, growing number to be the reason for coming to NUS.

Lily Kong

Engaging globally through dual degree programs: SUNY in Turkey

Editor’s note: this guest entry has been kindly prepared by Kavita Pandit, Senior Vice Provost, State University of New York (SUNY) System Administration. She joined the SUNY System in July 2007 from the University of Georgia where she worked for over two decades. Dr. Pandit has also acted as President (2006-2007) of the Association of American Geographers. At SUNY her responsibilities as Senior Vice Provost include oversight of International Programs and activities. She also oversees the Office of Program Review and Assessment, Academic Planning, Distinguished Professorships, and Faculty Development programs, and serves as the primary liaison to the Academic Affairs Committee of the SUNY Board of Trustees. Her entry should also be read in conjunction with one published on 15 February by Lily Kong on the National University of Singapore’s experience with such programs.

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A spate of recent articles in the New York Times, Inside Higher Ed, other media outlets, and blogs such as the Beerkens’ Blog and GlobalHigherEd, have examined the growing trend of American universities to establish overseas branch campuses as part of their internationalization strategy. These global outposts are seen as a way of fulfilling the growing demand for U.S. degrees while increasing the international prestige and reputation of the institution. Yet there is also a recognition that establishing campuses in other countries can be a risky venture for American universities because of the high cost involved, the difficulty in ensuring educational quality, and overseas concerns about the undermining of the local culture. A compelling alternative is the establishment of international dual diploma programs that can generate many of the benefits of international branch campuses while building deep and lasting partnerships with overseas universities. An excellent example of this is the State University of New York’s award winning dual diploma strategy in Turkey.

The State University of New York (SUNY) is comprised of 64 institutions that include major research universities, four-year comprehensive colleges, agriculture and technology colleges, and community colleges. In 2000, the System entered into a partnership with the Turkish Higher Education Council (YÖK), the body with oversight over Turkey’s higher education, to establish dual diploma programs between SUNY and Turkish universities.

Under this arrangement, Turkish students complete part of their undergraduate education in a Turkish institution and the other at a SUNY institution, fulfilling the requirements of both institutions for a degree in a particular program of study. Instead of the traditional 2+2 articulation (which restricts the overseas partner to delivering only introductory courses) we sought a more equal partnership by requiring students to spend alternating years (or blocks of semesters) in partner universities in a manner that took advantage of the specific academic strengths of each partner institution. Following completion of the requirements, students are then issued two diplomas, one from the Turkish institution and one from the SUNY campus.

In its first year, 2003-2004, ten dual diploma programs were initiated among three SUNY campuses (SUNY Binghamton, SUNY New Paltz, and Maritime College) and four Turkish universities (Istanbul Technical, Middle East Technical, Bilkent, and Boğaziçi University). More than 3,800 Turkish students applied for 305 slots in the programs, and eventually 262 formally enrolled. Over the next few years, 14 more dual diploma programs were added, and the number of participating universities has grown to 9 SUNY campuses and 9 Turkish universities. Currently about 400 students enroll in the dual diploma programs each year; over the initial five years, nearly 1500 Turkish students enrolled in the various dual diploma programs. The first classes of students have yielded 74 graduates and more than 180 will graduate in 2008.

For SUNY, the advantages of the dual diploma program were manifold. The program allowed SUNY campuses that previously had limited engagement in the international sphere, particularly the Middle East, to open the horizons of their institutions and their students. Through faculty exchanges with Turkish universities, a key part of the arrangement, there was a forging of new research and scholarly collaborations. The partnership with YÖK also helped build SUNY’s reputation in Turkey and draw attention to the quality of programs and faculty in campuses other than its already well known research universities.

The collaboration was also important for the Turkish side. Turkey’s system of universities is only able to accommodate about a quarter of the 1.5 million applicants who take the national university entrance examination administered by the Turkish Higher Education Council. Many highly motivated and well prepared students are turned away. The YÖK-SUNY dual-diploma program provided a way to increase the capacity of the Turkish university system. It also provided an attractive option to Turkish students who were able to receive a diploma from a U.S. university at a fraction of the cost. Not surprisingly, the majority of the Turkish students admitted into the dual diploma program were those that had scored at the 90th percentile or better on the entrance examination.

SUNY’s strategy in Turkey demonstrates how dual diploma programs can address the growing demand for U.S. degrees in a manner that is affordable to international students. Yet it avoids many of the risks and pitfalls of establishing overseas campuses because there is no need for new capital outlays or for hiring overseas faculty. By respecting and preserving the academic integrity of the educational systems of both countries, dual diploma programs are unlikely to evoke concerns about foreign influence over local cultural norms that overseas campuses may generate. Most importantly, dual degree programs are built around academic curricula that are focused on student learning and driven by the faculty. Students are immersed in two cultural and educational environments resulting in a richer education than either university alone can provide. Faculty in both universities are brought together to work out equivalencies in each other’s courses and curriculum, deepening international relationships between programs. Ultimately, by keeping students, faculty, and the integrity of academic programs in sharp focus, dual degree/diploma programs ensure that a university’s engagement in the international sphere never deviates from the core mission of higher education.

Kavita Pandit