CSHE@50: A Reflection and Prospectus on Globalization and Higher Education (Conference: March 27-28, 2007)

Conference Focus

Home | Focus | Program & Presenters | History | Publications | Gallery | UCTV

CSHE > Events > CSHE@50 > Focus

In the spring of 1957, the Center for Studies in Higher Education (CSHE) at the University of California, Berkeley was established, enabled by a grant from the Carnegie Corporation, making it the first center in the United States focused on higher education policy issues. The Center celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2007.

Since its establishment, the Center has been an important source for encouraging an international comparative perspective, and this thereby provided a timely scholarly theme for reflecting and projecting the role of higher education in society within a globalizing world.

CSHE@50, a one-day conference that occured in March 2007, offered an academic and celebratory event that reflected on the influence of globalization—past, present, and future—on higher education systems and institutions. The event also served to chronicle the history of CSHE affiliated scholars over the years, and to further build an academic community interested in the growing role of higher education in society.

A. CSHE and “Globalization”

A brief history of the establishment and development of CSHE is given in an attachment. Much of that history is focused upon international and multi-disciplinary comparative studies. The Center has acted as a home for visiting scholars and practitioners, many from other countries. The Center has also provided a forum for international delegations to visit and gain a scholarly perspective on the American higher education model. The Center’s research productivity and the large number of scholars and academic leaders that have affiliated with the Center have deeply influenced the development of higher education as an important field of study and the establishment of other higher education research centers. The Center’s support of an international perspective also has significantly influenced the growing field of research related to higher education, and has helped shape government policies in countries such as England and Sweden, in part facilitated by the high international interest in California’s pioneering system. The movement toward mass higher education and the increasingly important roles of colleges and universities for socio-economic mobility and global competitiveness has resulted in increasing interest in comparative models.

Research Questions

The symposium used the opportunity of the Center’s 50th anniversary to reflect and project on this comparative and globalization theme. For our purposes, and relating to our focus on higher education and its role in society, issues related to globalization were the following.

1) How have international models influenced the development of national higher education systems and institutions over the last 50 years, during what we might call Phase 1 in the process of globalization?

2) How is globalization now influencing national higher education systems and institutions, and higher education markets, in what we will call Phase 2, and how is it different from the past?

3) How will the process of globalization shape the future of higher education and its role in society, which we call Phase 3?

A few preliminary observations on Phase 1

As nations in Europe and in other parts of the world with developed economies have attempted to build their own mass higher education (HE) systems, most have looked to England or, more typically, the US to help guide them in this effort on their own political and cultural terms. At the same time, America’s unique position as the pioneer in mass higher education reinforced its largely isolationist impulses and made it less international. US lawmakers and HE leaders tended not to look abroad for ideas on organizing higher education or for leads on new areas of research—the isolationist impulse. The following list is a preliminary outline of major forces that describe higher education systems and the influences of international models some 50 years ago.

The unique strength of America’s diverse HE system and its openness for talent also invited and drew faculty and students from throughout the world. The drive toward mass HE and the creation of an academic and scientific community arguably unequaled in the world also resulted in the fastest growing HE system in enrollment, and the best funded. In part, this was because of large-scale investment by state governments; but it was also the result of a dramatic and huge investment by the federal government influenced by the Cold War (including Sputnik) and the Civil Rights Movement.

Essentially, in this first phase of globalization, ideas related to the role of universities in society and their proper organization moved predominantly from the US to other parts of the world---a trans-Atlantic and, to a lesser extent, trans-Pacific flow. However, in developing economies such as South America and parts of Northern Africa the European model held a greater initial influence, rooted in the colonial past. Students from these nations tended to go to Europe.

A few preliminary observations on Phase 2

Much has changed. Globalization is a phenomenon often described as a process of opening closed or semi-closed, and expanding, markets for educational services. Market forces alone, however, do not further globalization; there are also influences of technological advents, including the Internet. HE institutions are also undergoing organizational and behavioral changes as they seek new financial resources, face new competition, and seek greater prestige domestically and internationally.

Globalization is also affected increasingly by government policies, including relatively new international political bodies like the World Trade Organization and the European Union, and by potential changes in international treaties on trade.

A variety of trends demonstrate the significant influence of the globalization process on HE. Most tug and pull at our more traditional notion of national boundaries as the critical political and economic environment for HE. The global network and marketplace for academic researchers have grown significantly, for instance. Efforts are being made internationally to converge and standardize undergraduate and graduate degree programs, most notably via the Bologna Agreement in Europe. International collaborations with other academic institutions and businesses are now commonplace. Universities seek new avenues to fund and promote the commoditization of their knowledge-production capabilities.

Many HE institutions are also recruiting relatively new pools of students outside national borders. In this quest, most are seeking to apply new instructional technologies to expand enrolment and to enhance the viability and profitability of international ventures. Facilitated by these technologies, there is the spectre of a competitive environment between existing and new providers of HE, including the rise of new non-traditional and for-profit competitors. With this more competitive global framework has come talk of a need for international accreditation processes and new efforts at quality review.

A few preliminary observations on Phase 3

Beginning in the 1990s, the potent forces bringing important economic and political changes to the world emerged as a major area of study. Giddens and Castells, among others, have argued for the process of globalization as a force more powerful than industrialization, urbanization, and secularization combined.

Globalization, notes one observer, is the "inexorable integration of markets, nation-states and technologies to a degree never witnessed before—in a way that is enabling individuals, corporations and nation-states to reach around the world farther, faster, deeper and cheaper than ever before." In contrast, some groups of scholars and activists view globalization not as an inexorable process but rather as a deliberate ideological project of economic liberalization that subjects states and individuals to more intense market forces.

Whatever the sources of globalization, most globalist scholars predict an acute and sweeping effect on HE. There are two main and interconnected reasons for this prediction. First, the opening of what were previously closed markets dominated by state-subsidized providers will force a reconfiguration of the HE sector, thus opening opportunities for new providers. Second, new providers will have a competitive advantage, in large part because of their ability to adopt more efficient instructional technologies (IT) quickly. In this futurist vision, a once ubiquitous mode of delivery (the classroom) is replaced by another (online courses).

However, many observers of HE are dubious about whether the extent of these market shifts will foster homogeneity and convergence (Douglass, 2005). Might these forces of change foster a greater diversity of institutional types and culturally related institutions? Have the complexities of policymaking and markets been fully appreciated?

This short description and the outline above are, of course, incomplete. The objectives of the background papers and the symposium are to explore more fully the issue of globalization over time and its influence on systems and institutions of HE, past and future.

B. Planned Symposium and Program Goals

The program goals of for the symposium and related activities included a scholarly viewpoint on International influences on higher education, 1957-2007 and the next decade, reflection on the work of CSHE and affiliated scholars/researchers and organizations, and a gathering of alumni and CSHE community building.

To support these goals we planned three major components to the 50th anniversary:

1) A symposium “A Reflection and Prospectus on Globalization and Higher Education”

2) A series of research papers on the past and future influences of global perspectives and polices on higher education solicited and distributed prior to the symposium.

3) Development of a CSHE@50 website that included a brief history of the Center and included a listing of research associates and research publications over time.

The symposium offered an opportunity to gather a notable group of scholars and practitioners from throughout the world. The event also afforded the Center a forum in which to invite its numerous alumni to come back to the Center and reflect on their research activities and professional development. The Center had thus far not held a similar event. Juxtaposition with the workshop focused on the higher education reforms in OECD countries in the two days adjacent to the symposium increased the attraction for participants and gain cost efficiencies.