HE news from around the world
Click on the headings for the full stories
(see also daily news updates on the front page of our website)
US
A snapshot of California's higher education plight as well as some interesting ideas to buck the negative trends are outlined in this LA Times Op-Ed piece.
LATIN AMERICA
Times Higher Education reports on a Europe-funded effort to facilitate the integration of Latin American universities along the lines of the Bologna Process.
CANADA
Memorial University of Newfoundland's School of Graduate Studies has turned to South Korean, Japanese and Chinese social networks to recruit graduate students. The university received funding from the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency last year to support their innovative recruiting effort.
QUEBEC
Ken Steele’s Academic Top Ten today reports on efforts by the Conference of Rectors and Principals of Quebec Universities to help realise the province's immigration objectives.
Piero Fassino, the Mayor of Turin, has revealed in an interview with La Stampa that he is in touch with American universities on the possibility of setting up international operations in Turin. Fassino aims to bring Turin to the forefront of knowledge economy and innovation by making the city an academic hub. Current levels of student enrolment are quite encouraging according to Fassino, as 20% of current students at the local Polytechnic school are international.
Le Monde has disclosed that a delegation from the Chinese University Shanghai Jiao Tong, which publishes the annual Shanghai Ranking, visited in July a number of French universities, including Aix-Marseille University and the University of Bordeaux. The aim of the visit was to assess whether these universities should be ranked as a single academic institution and not as individual cases. As Le Monde reports, that would improve significantly the ranking of several French universities.
RWANDA
Carnegie Mellon University, an American university which recently received $265m from the steel tycoon William S Dietrich, has disclosed its plans to set up an international branch campus in Rwanda. The operation, which will be awarding an MSc in IT, is expected to open in 2012 and initially will enrol 40 students. CMU has already two international branch campuses, one in Qatar and another in Australia.
CHINA
University World News reports that China has awarded research grants worth more than $19m to the Ningbo branch campus of Nottingham University to produce 'at least 100 new scientists' in the energy, manufacturing and the digital economy sectors.