International Professors News

GLOBAL: Education under increasing attack

Around the world, schools and universities have faced brutal military and political attacks in an increasing number of countries over the past three years, according to a new report published by Unesco. The report, Education under Attack 2010, was written by University World News correspondent Brendan O’Malley and he says the sheer volume of incidents demonstrates that attacks on education are “by no means limited to supporters of the Taliban fighting in the hills of Afghanistan”. Education and those involved have been subject to attacks in at least 31 countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Europe.
Full report on the University World News site
See O’Malley’s commentary in the Features section

ZIMBABWE: Brain drain bites, academics strike

Science departments in Zimbabwe’s universities have been hardest hit by a brain drain that has been blamed mostly on poor salaries. Last week low pay prompted lectures at all state-run higher education institutions go on strike as part of wider civil service industrial action.
Full report on the University World News site

AFRICA: Scientists scoop African Union awards - Munyaradzi Makoni

Professor Diane Hildebrandt was one of two South African winners of the inaugural African Union Scientific Awards for basic science, technology and innovation, announced during an African Union summit in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa recently. Hildebrandt said she represented “scientists and engineers in Africa – men and women – who are doing research in often very difficult conditions and always with too few resources”.
Full report on the University World News site

US: Higher education’s new global order - John Aubrey Douglass

Governments are having an epiphany. They are increasingly recognising that their social and economic futures depend heavily on the educational attainment of their population, and as a corollary, on the size and quality of their higher education institutions and systems. Within this relatively new policy and economic environment, the command economy approaches to creating and regulating mass higher education that once dominated most parts of the world are withering. What is emerging is what I call ‘Structured Opportunity Markets’ (SOM) in higher education – essentially, a convergence, in some form, in the effort of nation-states to create a more lightly regulated and more flexible network of public higher education institutions, including diversified and mission-differentiated providers, new finance structures, and expanding enrolment and programme capacity.
More on the University World News site
Paper from the Center for Studies in Higher Education, Berkeley

GLOBAL: The Rise of Asia’s universities - Richard C Levin

At the beginning of the 21st century, the East is rising. The rapid economic development of Asia since the Second World War has altered the balance of power in the global economy and hence in geopolitics. The rising nations of the East all recognise the importance of an educated workforce as a means to economic growth and understand the impact of research in driving innovation and competitiveness. In the 1960s, 70s and 80s the higher education agenda in Asia’s early developers – Japan, South Korea and Taiwan – was first and foremost to increase the fraction of their populations provided with postsecondary education. Their initial focus was on expanding the number of institutions and their enrolments, and impressive results were achieved. Today, the later and much larger developing nations of Asia – China and India – have an even more ambitious agenda.
More on the University World News site
Yale President’s lecture to The Royal Society, UK
 

For years, we have been working together as educators and advocators to make a difference in the lives of our young present and future generations. We have created, initiated and already accomplished noble projects, at the local and international levels, comprehensively designed to help youths to become reflective, creative and spiritually and morally upright leaders amidst global socio-cultural diversity.

Hence, I would like to invite you to collaborate in expanding our mission as educators by supporting our cause throughout the World Creative Youth Forum (WCYF).

The 2nd World Creative Youth Forum 2011 global event will be held in Costa Rica and we are seeking youth participants with ages between 18-35, to join us in this international youth leaders forum.

Application is due on or before December 31, 2010. Please help us spread the word about this event. For more details, please visit our website and networking communities at:

http://worldcreativeyouthforum2011.ning.com/

For supplementary information, funding opportunities, sponsorship and others please also contact:


HRH Prince Frederick Von Saxe Lauenberg:

Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it


The time to take action is now. We need to gather our young leaders together because young leaders of today, future leaders of tomorrow.
Please support our cause.

Thank you for your response and collaboration
 

Prof. Bhola R. Gurjar , an International Professors Fellow, and our former
board director, a professor at the Indian Institute of Technology, has
published "Air Pollution: Health and Environmental Impacts"
(Foreword by Nobel Laureate Prof. Mario J. Molina) is under
publication at CRC Press (Taylor & Francis, USA)
 

Rush Khan, our International Professors Fellow, moderates two sessions on Solar Energy Options

Rush Khan, our International Professors Fellow, moderates two sessions on Solar Energy Options. He argues that the world is moving rapidly to the point where solar technologies will not only be desirable-they will be absolutely necessary for both  poor and rich nations . He participated in Solar Energy Options Explored at Licensing Executives Society Annual Meeting
 
(Nanowerk News) Solar energy is rapidly emerging as one of the solutions to expanding global clean energy needs and a way to reduce carbon emissions into the environment while providing much needed electricity in many parts of the world. At the recent Licensing Executives Society (USA & Canada) Annual Meeting in San Francisco, a two-part session on solar energy explored some of the new technologies and offered a forum for discussion on how these technologies could be licensed and implemented.
 
M. Rashid Khan, Ph. D, Deputy Director of the Technology Program/Intellectual Assets Management of Engineering Services at the Saudi Arabian Oil Company, organized and moderated the two sessions on solar. Khan also served as the Champion of the Solar Energy Research Center for the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, where he developed the Intellectual Property Policy for the university. He authored a paper entitled, "Potential of Solar Energy in Desert Region as a Source of Clean Power," which describes how the deserts of Middle East have the potential to provide most of the power needed in the region, and may also become sources of energy for Europe in coming years.
 
"Saudi Arabia receives one of the highest solar irradiation intensity levels on Earth," Khan says. "Located in the center of the so-called 'sun belt,' Saudi Arabia is part of a vast region reaching from the western edge of North Africa to the eastern edge of Central and South Asia that boasts one of the best solar energy resources on Earth. The region is attracting the attention of a growing number of European leaders, who are embracing proposals to harvest this solar energy for their nations."
 
In a solar workshop entitled, "Innovations in Solar Energy: Opportunities in An Emerging World," Khan described how this technology can be developed to generate these large amounts of clean energy in both rich and poor nations. Several other speakers also described their own solar energy research, making the session a strong overview of many aspects of current developments in the field. They included:
 
Kieran Drain, Ph.D, President and CEO, NanoGram Corporation, speaking on "Innovation in Silicon meets the Cost Demands to Accelerate Mass Solar Deployment"
 
Tony Seba, Ph.D, Serial Entrepreneur and Lecturer at Stanford University, speaking on "Solar Innovation Outside the Gears"
Reinhold Dauskardt, Ph.D, Professor and Associate Chair, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Stanford University, speaking on "Reliability Challenges for Emerging Solar Technologies"
 
Ryan Williams, Ph.D, Director of Research Development at the Fraunhofer Center for Sustainable Energy Systems at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, speaking on "Laboratory to Marketplace: Bridging the Gap in Solar Innovation"
Tim Maloney, a solar investigator, speaking on "Low Cost Heliostat Power Tower Program for the Third World"
 
"The world is moving rapidly to the point where these technologies will not only be desirable - they will be absolutely necessary for both rich and poor nations," Khan said. "By presenting these ideas and knowledge at the LES Annual Meeting, we were able to raise awareness of them among many intellectual property licensing executives who can help drive them forward." Khan can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .
 

Special Issue of Intercultural Education published by Terri Kim

Terri Kim quotes: "I am happy to tell you that the Special Issue of Intercultural Education (Vol. 20, No. 5) on 'Interculturality and Higher Education' has been published recently." Below are her recent works:

  • Kim, T. & Otten, M. (eds). (2009) Interculturality and Higher Education, Special Issue of Intercultural Education, Vol. 20, No. 5. (Routledge Journal: ISSN 1467-5986).
  • Kim, T.(2009) Transnational Academic Mobility, Internationalisation and Interculturality in Higher Education In Intercultural Education Special Issue on Interculturality and Higher Education Edited by Terri Kim & Matthias Otten. Vol. 20, No. 5, pp. 395-405, Routledge Journal: ISSN 1467-5986. doi:10.1080/14675980903371241 (http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14675980903371241).

Terri belongs to the following groups:

--Associate, CHES (Centre for Higher Education Studies), Institute of Education, University of London
--Associate, CHERI (Centre for Higher Education Research and Information), Open University, U.K.

Visit her website: http://www.open.ac.uk/cheri/pages/CHERI-VPA-Kim.shtml