The Globalization of Higher Education

Here the focus was very much on changing paradigms in education and research, driven and enabled by rapidly evolving technologies such as the Internet, and whether these would lead to truly global universities.It was noted that the open university paradigm, best exemplified by the United Kingdom's Open University, had already achieved global span through the use of many technologies and practices such as lifelong learning, distance education, open source and content educational resources, and peer production.Yet there were also concerns raised that many of the characteristics of global business such as standardization, networked resources and virtual organizations seemed incompatible with the fundamental characteristics of contemporary universities, currently based upon highly customized, campus-based, and face-to-face educational experiences.The final session turned to a discussion of the broader global responsibilities of higher education from the perspective of Europe (Luc Weber), the Middle East (John Waterbury) and America (Robert Zemsky and David Ward).It was stressed that in their efforts to globalize, universities should resist the tendency to adopt colonial strategies, in which their outreach activities were primarily designed to attract new resources -students, faculty, fee income -for their home campuses.Instead they should attempt to be not only responsive but also responsible in their globalization efforts by accepting responsibility for enhancing the development of higher education systems elsewhere along with a broad commitment to enabling sustainable societies in all their facets: environmental, economic, and political.Here there was also the caution raised that universities were most effective and constructive when they focused on their traditional roles of education and scholarship within academic communities based upon academic freedom and democratic processes.