News of the Center and the Program in Higher Education

New CIHE publications

Women’s Universities and Colleges: An International Handbook, by Francesca B. Purcell, Robin Matross Helms, and Laura Rumbley, has been published. This 290-page volume consists of an inventory of 126 women’s universities and colleges worldwide. Detailed information concerning academic focus, programs, and contact information is provided. An interpretative essay is also included. This book reflects a recognition of the importance of women’s education worldwide. Copies are available on request from the CIHE to readers in developing countries.

Asian Universities: Historical Perspectives and Contemporary Challenges, edited by Philip G. Altbach and Toru Umakoshi has been published by the Johns Hopkins University Press in hardback and paperback editions (ISBN 0-8018-8037-8). This book includes analytic essays focusing on the central issues facing such key Asian countries as China, India, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Cambodia. The authors are key researchers and academic leaders in their countries. This volume was part of a Toyota Foundation–supported research project. Limited numbers of copies are available free of charge to researchers in developing countries. Please write to the CIHE with your request. Copies are also for sale from the Johns Hopkins University Press, 2715 N. Charles St., Baltimore MD 21218, USA. The price of the paperback edition is U.S.$35.

Update of the Higher Education Program/Center Directory

The CIHE is now in the process of updating our inventory of centers and programs in higher education, originally published in 2000. Our goal is to provide a comprehensive listing of institutions and research and policy centers in the field of higher education, as well as training programs in the field. We welcome information concerning such institutes and programs worldwide and count on our colleagues to provide this information to us. Please contact Deirdre McMyler at the CIHE (e-mail: mcmylede@bc.edu). Copies of the 2000 book are available from the CIHE without cost. Please contact us if you would like to have a copy.

NEWS OF THE CENTER

The CIHE’s core support from the Ford Foundation has been renewed for an additional two years. This support will permit us to publish IHE and our other publications, as well as to engage in several new research initiatives. The Ford Foundation has provided support for CIHE for the past 8 years. Work is proceeding on a bibliography on globalization and higher education as it relates to developing countries.

A new research project on “the crisis of the public university in comparative perspective” will begin in 2005. The focus will be on these key academic institutions in developing and middle-income countries. Public institutions face unprecedented problems as they cope with the implications of mass higher education and as state support is withdrawn. In much of the world, the key public universities are the central research institutions.

Former CIHE staffer David Engberg has joined the international office at Montana State University in Bozeman. He continues to assist the Center with its website and other technical issues. CIHE graduate assistant Natia Janashia published an article on higher education in Georgia in Academe, the journal of the American Association of University Professors. Former CIHE staff member Dr. Alma Maldonado-Maldonado, now teaching at the University of Arizona, is working with the CIHE, the University of Arizona, and the National Autonomous University of Mexico on our institutional collaboration project: a conference is being planned for spring, 2005 in Mexico City. Dr. Damtew Teferra, editor of the Journal of Higher Education in Africa, at CIHE, recently gave a paper at a conference on the brain drain in Toronto, Canada. He will participate in the Association of African Universities conference in Cape Town early in 2005. CIHE director Philip Altbach recently spoke at several universities in Taiwan at the invitation of the Taiwan government. He will participate in a conference on higher education development in the Netherlands in May and is working with a U.S.-Japan research group sponsored by the Social Science Research Council on the concept of “soft power” and higher education.

Several CIHE publications have been translated recently. A Japanese edition has appeared of Private Prometheus: Private Higher Education and Development, edited by Philip Altbach, published by the Tamagawa University Press in Tokyo. The Decline of the Guru: The Academic Profession in Developing and Middle-Income Countries, edited by Philip Altbach, has been published in Spanish by the Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana in Mexico City. The China Ocean University Press in Quingdao, China, is currently involved in translating and publishing six CIHE volumes into Chinese.