News of the Center and the Program in Higher Education

On May 3, the Center hosted a conference of the main researchers on international higher education funded by the Ford Foundation, at Boston College. The discussions focused on how international and comparative higher education might be strengthened in the United States. Work on the Center's research project on women's colleges and universities worldwide has now been completed. A book entitled Women's Universities and Colleges: An International Handbook, by Francesca Purcell, Robin Matross Helms, and Laura Rumbley will be published by the Center, with a commercial edition from Information Age Publishing, Inc. The Center's collaboration with the Program for Research on Private Higher Education at the University at Albany has concluded with the publication of Private Higher Education: An International Bibliography, by Alma Maldonado-Maldonado, Yingxia Cao, Philip G. Altbach, Daniel C. Levy, and Hong Zhu. CIHE and PROPHE jointly published the book, and a commercial edition will be available from Information Age Publishers, Inc. PROPHE will also provide web-based access to the bibliography.

The Center's website has achieved the distinction of being at the top of several of the major search engine's subject directories. When a user looks for "international higher education" or a related topic, the CIHE site is shown at the top of the lists for Google, Yahoo and MSN. This is a considerable distinction and indicates that our website is widely used and that those who visit the site spend a significant amount of time on it.

For the 2004-2005 academic year, there are several changes to note in CIHE staff. Hong Zhu will be working for the Boston College Institutional Review Board. Francesca Purcell has received her doctorate for a dissertation on women's higher education in the Phillippines and is on the staff of the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education. Robin Matross Helms has taken a position with the Institute of International Higher Education in Washington, DC. Deirdre McMyler will join the Center as a graduate assistant. She is currently working as an administrator at Harvard University.

Philip G. Altbach participated in a UNESCO seminar on higher education in Tokyo in May. He will speak at a conference in Bergen, Norway in September and will give a series of lectures in India in the fall. His coedited (with Toru Umakoshi) book, Asian Universities: Historical Perspectives and Contemporary Realities, will be published by the Johns Hopkins University Press in late 2004. A Chinese translation will be published by the China Ocean University Press, and a Japanese language edition is also being planned. Dr. Damtew Teferra, editor-in-chief of the Journal of Higher Education in Africa and research assistant professor at the Center was on a panel on "International Mobility Perspectives" at a conference in Lisbon, Portugal from in February 2004, and spoke at the 10th Harvard International Development Conference at Harvard University on "Reinventing African Universities Toward a New Development Agenda in a Globalizing World" that took place in April 2004.

The Center has received a grant for work on a handbook for academic leaders in developing countries. Work proceeds as well on a research project on globalization and higher education. This work is coordinated by Laura Rumbley and Hong Zhu.

Center related book series and publications
RoutledgeFalmer Studies in Higher Education, a book series that mainly publishes excellent doctoral dissertations in the field of higher education, is edited by Philip G. Altbach. The series has published more than 20 books on a variety of topics including university-industry collaboration, women's studies, governance in public universities, the use of information technology in Africa, the development of Catholic higher education in China, and others More information can be obtained from Kimberly Guinta, RoutledgeFalmer Publishers, 29 W. 35th St., New York, NY 10001, USA.

The Center for International Higher Education's book series now includes 13 titles, most of which remain in print:

Free copies of most of these books are available to institutions in developing countries on request.