Southeastern Pennsylvania Consortium for Higher Education
Receives Lumina Foundation for Education Grant to Serve the Underserved
The Southeastern Pennsylvania Consortium for Higher Education (SEPCHE) has been awarded a Lumina Foundation for Education grant of $115,600 to help institutions respond more effectively to their changing demographics in the college-age population, with particular emphasis on addressing underserved populations.

The eight colleges and universities of SEPCHE envision their campuses serving in a more sensitive and sensible fashion the increasingly diverse population of students that has begun to reshape their campuses. The grant will help the member institutions to fund Phase I of the multifaceted, “Serving the Underserved” (SUS) project.

For More Information
Brighid Blake, Executive Director of SEPCHE
212-572-8543
www.sepche.org


Academy for Educational Development
Palestinian Students Reflect on Life in the U.S.
Last fall, 24 Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza began graduate study at American universities as part of the Presidential Scholarship Program, which is administered by AED.

The USAID-funded initiative offers participants the opportunity to gain additional knowledge and expertise that will be critical to the development of the Palestinian economy and society.  Students are also learning valuable leadership skills. Nearly 100 Palestinian students who have studied in the U.S. through a similar AED program, have returned to the West Bank and Gaza to work with international and local non-governmental organizations, agencies within the Palestinian government, or academia.

Studying in the U.S. is an experience that is giving the students a chance to be part of American society and revealing some unexpected surprises as they navigate better understanding between both cultures.

These four Palestinians, who have just completed their first year of study, share their impressions of life in the U.S. and explain how their experiences here will help them bring about positive change in their communities back home.

For More Information:
www.aed.org/Youth/pal_student_interviews.cfm

 

SOCHE Announces 2006-07 Conferences
The Southwestern Ohio Council for Higher Education is delighted to announce its 40th Anniversary Conference Season. SOCHE councils/committees and our partners programmed a year of compelling professional development opportunities that cover a diverse range of topics, including: Facebook, Campus Ecology, Integrated Marketing and Branding, Articulation and Transfer, Future of Library as Place, Chairing for the Future, and Pedagogy of Service.

Further, we are particularly thrilled that this season includes a visit with Richard Florida (author of The Rise of the Creative Class and The Flight of the Creative Class), as well as SOCHE's 40th Anniversary Celebration being led by educational activist Parker Palmer. We hope you will join us!

Formed in 1967, SOCHE is dedicated to advancing higher education in the region through active collaboration, resource and knowledge building, and effective professional development programs. We look forward to celebrating 40 years of service to higher education with you!

The SOCHE Team
Please share this news brief with colleagues at your institution. If you have questions, contact us at (937) 258-8890 or by email.
Please visit SOCHE Conferences for all event details


Netherlands Organization for International Cooperation in Higher Education
Cities of Hope, Cities of Despair?
From October 15 until 20 the Institute of Social Studies (ISS) in The Hague will be celebrating its 55th anniversary. The theme of the lustrum activities is ‘Citizenship: Cities of Hope, Cities of Despair’. With this theme ISS intends to revive the debate on the importance of citizenship in the context of cities, the place where major development issues are being confronted every day.

ISS will kick off the lustrum week with an International Symposium entitled ‘Cities of Extremes’ (15-16 October 2007), hosted by the ISS-based journal Development & Change. On Wednesday October 17 there will be a lively day of public debate on ‘Cities of Hope, Cities of Despair’.

Parallel to this, NGOs, researchers and ministries will be present at an information market in the afternoon where they will present their work in the field of poverty alleviation in urban areas. For more information please visit www.iss.nl.

 

Rochester Institute of Technology to Provide Discounted Tuition to Members as Part of IEEE Education Partners Program
IEEE members are now eligible for a 10 percent tuition discount on courses offered by the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) by enrolling through the IEEE Education Partners program. RIT currently offers more than 45 certificate and degrees online, and has an office dedicated to supporting students enrolled in online programs.

Students taking RIT online courses are afforded all of the same functions of a traditional university including admissions, financial aid services, registration, tuition payment, a comprehensive library and a bookstore.  

Consistently ranked as one of the United States’ leading comprehensive universities by U.S. News & World Report, RIT is recognized as a world leader in career-oriented and professional education. With more than 20 years of experience in distance learning, RIT offers advanced certificates and master’s degrees online in areas such as imaging science, information technology, microelectronics, networking, and systems administration.

The IEEE, a non-profit organization, is the world's leading professional association for the advancement of technology. The full name of the IEEE is the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc., although the organization is referred to by the letters I-E-E-E and pronounced Eye-triple-E.
 
Through its global membership, the IEEE is a leading authority on areas ranging from aerospace systems, computers and telecommunications to biomedical engineering, electric power and consumer electronics among others. 

Members rely on the IEEE as a source of technical and professional information, resources and services. To foster an interest in the engineering profession, the IEEE also serves student members in colleges and universities around the world. www.ieee.org/portal/site

Enhancing Quality Across Borders – Regional Cooperation in Quality Assurance in Higher Education
The process of intensifying transnational, regional cooperation in the quality assurance of degree programs is becoming ever more important. Given the internationalization that is taking place in the field of higher education and in the globalization of labor markets, this development cannot only be seen in Europe, but also in the emerging economies, in countries in transition and in developing countries. An international conference organized by the German Rectors' Conference (Hochschulrektorenkonferenz – HRK) and the German Academic Exchange Service (Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst) in Bonn from 18 to 20 June 2007 will address the general frameworks for and practical implementation of regional quality assurance networks in the higher education sector.

The conference will enable university rectors and presidents as well as representatives of international higher education organizations, the World Bank, the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) that is financing the conference, plus students and representatives of companies and trade unions to discuss relevant questions and topics.

Transnational networks of cooperation in quality assurance have formed in many regions of the world in recent years. By establishing regional quality standards, the conference aims to achieve a common definition of the quality of degree programs that is of central importance to the recognition of academic degrees and to the mobility of students, academics and researchers, and university graduates within regional higher education areas and employment markets. With this back-ground in mind, the German Rectors' Conference and the German Academic Exchange Service are organizing the conference on "Enhancing Quality Across Borders – Regional Cooperation in Quality Assurance in Higher Education" in Bonn from 18 to 20 June 2007. The conference is being held within the scope of the joint higher education management program "Dialogue on Innovative Higher Education Strategies (DIES)". It will offer some 100 higher education experts from various countries a forum at which they can discuss different models of regional cooperation in quality assurance.
 
The conference aims to enable participants to exchange ideas and views on the processes taking place in the various regions and on their continuing development and enhancement, to define the institutional and political frameworks needed for successful regional networking in quality assurance, and, in addition, to find and identify approaches for increasing and consolidating cooperation between the regions. At the end of the conference, the organizers plan to adopt a joint statement by the participants that is meant to address quality assurance players in the higher education sector, the universities themselves, the ministries and regional coordination bodies, as well as international sponsors and donors.

The HRK and DAAD are convinced that funding and promoting regional quality assurance structures in higher education is of great development policy relevance, for example, by encouraging the revision of degree program content from a labor market-oriented perspective. This is why the HRK and DAAD have focused part of their international work in recent years on quality assurance in Central America, as well as in East Africa, in South East Asia, and in the Middle East. The growing significance of these activities corresponds with the developments taking place in the European Higher Education and Research Area.

Contact partners: Marijke Wahlers, HRK, 0228/887-128, wahlers@hrk.de
Christoph Hansert, DAAD, 0228/882-533, hansert@daad.de

 

Access to Higher Education through Consortia
Anneke Larrance, Executive Director, Associated Colleges of the St. Lawrence Valley, Larry Dotolo, President, Virginia Tidewater Consortium and Anneke Larrance, Executive Director, Associated Colleges of the St. Lawrence Valley are co-editors of, Access to Higher Education through Consortia; Published by Jossey-Bass.  

Representing many consortia, ACL members wrote chapters for Access to Higher Education through Consortia. Authors shared insights into building a college-going culture and solutions to providing access to the underserved. They explained a secondary school holistic approach to access and described how to leverage resources to provide access. Other chapters addressed access to graduate education and the consortia-building experience of the Jamaican Higher Education Consortium; the final chapter articulated the questions and possible solutions that consortia must face in order to provide access.