Global Associates International Symposium
The Future of Cross-Border Higher Education: Issues, Models and Practices

Moderator: Kristine Billmyer, School of Continuing Education, Columbia University and Chair, UCEA Global Associates Knowledge Network
Speakers: Don Olcott, Jr., Chief Executive, The Observatory on Borderless Higher Education (London, England); Mitch Leventhal, Vice Chancellor for Global Affairs, State University of New York (SUNY); Hans de Wit, Professor of Internationalization of Higher Education, University of Applied Sciences (Amsterdam, Holland); Keiko Yokoyama, Visiting Scholar, Center for Studies in Higher Education, University of California, Berkeley.

    Higher education systems around the world have experienced tremendous growth in the past decade with enrollments reaching almost 153 million in 2008 – a more than 50 percent increase in less than ten years. This phenomenon, dubbed “the global academic revolution”, has at least two salient features: a rapid rise in mass demand for higher education and a significant increase in student mobility. A cursory look around the world highlights what is in store for cross-border higher education. In Asia, Japan wants to triple its intake of international students to 300,000 while South Korea aims to double its intake to 100,000. Taiwan is investing in scholarships for foreign students and has launched a national campaign to attract international students. European Union’s successful Erasmus program under which more than 162,000 students and 27,000 academics traveled within Europe to study or to teach in 2007-8, has given rise to Erasmus Mundus program which encourages graduate students and scholars to travel outside the EU and brings their counterparts from across the globe to Europe. Financing for this program which started in 2004 has quadrupled to $1.4 billion. Not to fall behind, Canada has announced that it wants to substantially increase its number of foreign students which currently stands at 176,000.
    Given the complexities and uncertainties of cross-border higher education, UCEA Global Associates have invited a distinguished roster of international education experts to address the general trends and, more specifically, the issues, models and practices that will shape the future of international education.

DON OLCOTT will open the symposium by presenting an overview of cross-border higher education and will address the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead for its practitioners. Dr. Olcott is a frequent presenter at open and distance education conferences and plans and conducts conferences on internationalization of higher education on a regular basis. The Observatory held a major international conference on cross-border higher education, Global Forum 2009, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia last October.

MITCH LEVENTHAL is Vice Chancellor for Global Affairs at the largest and most comprehensive public university system in the world, the State University of New York (SUNY). He is the first to hold this position. Dr. Leventhal will focus on two disparate but related issues: i) the growing complexity of global relationships and the development of systems to better map these relationships, with an aim to developing deeper and more meaningful collaborations, and ii) the changing dynamics of global recruitment, and emerging standards which may change the competitive landscape for international students. Along the way, he will touch on issues related to systemic strategic planning, the challenges of incomplete information in the planning process, the utility of “strange” and incomplete data in strategic planning, and the importance of academic risk taking in a global context.

HANS DE WIT is a founding member and past president of the European Association for International Education (EAIE) and the Co-Editor of Journal of Studies in International Education. His presentation will look at the future of cross-border higher education through the lens of practices that make up international education such as student mobility and student services. Among Dr. de Wit’s recent publications is a book on the dynamics of international student mobility.

KEIKO YOKOYAMA is an expert on many of the issues that impact the future of cross-border higher education, namely quality assurance, accreditation and regulatory framework. Dr. Yokoyama who has recently completed a study of institutional strategies vis-à-vis the above-named issues, will discuss her findings in her presentation. Her major research interests are internationalization of higher education, comparative higher education policies and institutional governance, management and leadership.