Good Practices for Short Term Study Abroad

Last Saturday afternoon our Study Abroad team held a required orientation session for all University of Missouri students who are registered for summer academic courses abroad. I was amazed at the number of people who participated.

Most of these students will take courses led by MU faculty members. The number of faculty involved, and the variety of short-term courses offered abroad are fast expanding. Clearly, student demand for this type of international learning experience is growing, despite current economic conditions.

I'm co-leading one of these short-term programs. We're about one month from departure to Ireland. As time gets shorter, I'm reminded of the amount of work, and the weight of responsibility involved in building a successful short term study abroad program.

Earlier this year, the Forum on Education Abroad released Standards of Good Practice to assist with development, planning, implementation, and assessment of these programs. I challenge all faculty, staff, students and parents involved to read this report, and adopt its recommendations.

Universities and Economic Development in the Future

The Institute for the Future recently posted an interesting essay about emerging trends in economic development. It portends new roles for universities, and it emphasizes the need for speed, and the growing importance of global connections.

Here is a brief excerpt...

Based on interviews with experts in innovation and entrepreneurship, scientific collaboration, university research management and urban design and development, we have identified external trends that will challenge our existing models for technology-based economic development in coming years:

The Biological World. If the 20th century was defined by physics, the 21st century will be defined by biology. Biomedical clusters will grow according to a very different set of rules than IT industries did.

Global, Networked Science. Science is becoming globalized, which means that local clusters cannot exist in isolated. To succeed they need to be connected to other innovation hubs.

The New Scientist. The lone genius is rapidly becoming a thing of the past, as young scientists pioneer massively collaborative work styles. Science 2.0 will shake the institutional foundations of science, from journals to patents to university departments.

Big Science, Lightweight Innovation. As the federal government pours money into basic research, companies are stripping their R&D organizations to the bone, instead favoring lightweight and open innovation strategies. The inevitable disconnect means a need for new systems that can take raw breakthroughs and prepare them for commercialization.

New Public Agenda. Turning federal dollars into jobs fast is the order of the day. But it’s not clear if research parks and incubators can deliver at the pace demanded.

The Persistence of Place. While science is taking full advantage of the web, place is more important than ever for the creative collaborative work that can’t be virtualized. But the way young innovators use space will be more dynamic, ad hoc and flexible.

Universities Transformed. Today’s leading research universities treat intellectual property like corporations of yesterday, while the most innovative companies are opening up and becoming more like yesterday’s universities. As universities shift roles from ivory tower to economic engine, fundamental flaws in technology transfer mechanisms will become all too clear.

Towards a New Model: Building Regional Knowledge Ecosystems

The trends described in the preceding section are global trends, which means there is little that economic developers in any one community can do to shape the speed or scope of how they play out. But there is one more important trend, the growth of regional approaches to technology-based economic development. Unlike those, the rise of technology regions is a trend that you can help shape.

We are just beginning to see the outlines of this approach, which involves many partners – research parks, large research-driven companies, startups, universities, investors and professionals – working together to develop regional knowledge ecosystems. These networks consist of a number of elements, someformal and other informal:

• Research partnerships between universities and companies
• Social networks of entrepreneurs,professionals and amateurs
• Investor cliques and clubs
• Virtual networks and their members both inside and outside the region

Regional knowledge ecosystems are different from clusters, because they aren’t limited to a single industry, and companies aren’t necessarily the most important pieces. In a sense, for regional knowledge ecosystems, firms are the way that network expresses its ideas about what technologies ought to be commercially developed. For instance, when enough people in Silicon Valley begin experimenting with a new technology, inevitably a whole array of firms launch to develop it further. The firms emerge from the ecosystem, not the other way around.

The strength of regional knowledge ecosystems is that they can adapt faster than national systems, which are dictated by federal politics, and they can scale up successful enterprises much more effectively that individual research parks or municipalities. This is one reason why major policy think tanks in Washington – the Brookings Institution, the Center for American Progress, and the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation – are all advocating that federal research grants be targeted to regional partnerships of federal labs, universities, companies and entrepreneurs.

New York Times Immigration Series -- Highly Recommended

The New York Times is running an excellent multimedia series called Remade in America: a Series about the Newest Immigrants and their Impact on American Institutions.

This series contains some outstanding interactive maps. This one will show you where foreign born people have settled through out the United States, and how that's changed over the last 100 years.

It also includes an ongoing debate called "do we need foreign technology workers?"

The most recent addition to the series follows Google's experience with how Tech Recruiting Clashes with Immigration Rules.

BTW -- an interesting Bill was just introduced in the House of Representatives. H.R. 1791 would:

amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to authorize certain aliens who have earned a Ph.D. degree from a United States institution of higher education in a field of science, technology, engineering, or mathematics to be admitted for permanent residence and to be exempted from the numerical limitations on H-1B nonimmigrants.

Source:

GovTrack.us. H.R. 1791--111th Congress (2009): STAPLE Act, GovTrack.us (database of federal legislation) (accessed Apr 13, 2009)

{{cite web |url=http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-1791 |title=H.R. 1791 |accessdate=Apr 13, 2009 |author=111th Congress (2009) |date=Mar 30, 2009 |work=Legislation |publisher=GovTrack.us |quote=STAPLE Act }}

Posts from MU students abroad

Blogs (and photo sites) are a great way to follow the experience of MU students studying abroad. In case you're interested, you can see the work of:

• Lisa Braciale - in Botswana
• David Blair - in Paris
• Paul Mossine - an exchange student at Lyon III. (Paul has some great photos!)

PLEASE NOTE: These are unfiltered accounts of individual experiences that extend outside of the classroom.

Thanks to these students for granting permission to share their experiences, and to our study abroad staff at the International Center for scouting them out.

If you know of similar blogs or sites, please let me know. Thanks!

Two New Books on Africa

I'm spending quite a bit of time these days with MU scholars who are managing or pursuing important relationships with African institutions.

If you want to learn more about Africa, this week's New York Times Book Review highlights two new works that might be helpful.

1. Africa's World War: Congo, the Rwandan Genocide and the Making of a Continental Catastrophe
2. A Legacy of Liberation: Thabo Mbeki and the Future of the South African Dream.

Each of these books addresses critical issues that are not widely discussed in the US. Each offers perspective that is at times controversial and/or inaccurate.

Still, I think they're worth reading.

Bologna: The Basics and the Big Picture

On his first trip to Europe in office, President Obama is working to re-establish the crucial alliance between the US and European States. One way to do this is to encourage Transatlantic collaborations in higher education. In fact, funding mechanisms, such as the Atlantis program are designed for this purpose. However, US universities must appreciate the reforms of the Bologna Process to build effective European partnerships.

Later this week I'll lead a class discussion in the MU Honor's College to elaborate on this point. During this discussion, I'll draw mainly on two sources.

The first source is Bologna for Pedestrians, provided by the Council of Europe. It provides an easy-access reference in FAQ format.

The second is a recent paper presented by John Yopp, called Systems of Higher Education in the US and Europe: Convergence and Collaborative Opportunities. The is a pretty lengthy power point presentation available in a somewhat awkward format. However, it's worth the time to read because it describes:

1. the nature of the opportunities afforded to US universities through the Bologna Process
2. the reasons why we may not fully appreciate them.
   

Global Food Security

I see on Senator Richard Lugar's (R-Indiana) site that the Obama administration has endorsed doubling US assistance to agricultural and rural development in developing countries.

Senator Lugar is a chief sponsor of the Global Food Securities Act. He has said that overcoming hunger should be starting point for U.S. domestic and foreign policy.

Global food security will be a key theme for the University of Missouri International Education Week April 13-16. On Tuesday April 14, Douglas Casson Coutts will speak at the Chancellor's Global Issues Forum on The Scourge of Global Hunger: Problems and Solutions.

Dr. Coutts is a Senior Advisor to the UN World Food Program, and a Distinguished Visiting Professor at Auburn University. He currently leads a growing coalition called Universities Fighting World Hunger. Coutts will also hold an informal session for MU students that day on preparing for a career in public service.

Watch this site for further scheduling details.