AcademicMatters€™08.pdf · the Global University An OCUFA Publication Oct-Nov 2008 ... 19...

Academic MattersTHE JOURNAL OF HIGHER EDUCATION

LA REVUE D’ENSEIGNEMENT SUPÉRIEUR

Jane Knight The internationalization of higher education: Are we on the right track?

Ross Upshur Ethical dilemmas in training international medical professionals

Heather Kanuka and Terry Anderson Distributed workplaces and e-academics: What’s happening?

Jean-Claude Guédon Digitizing and the meaning of knowledge

Internationalization and the Global University An

OCU

FA P

ublic

atio

n O

ct-N

ov 2

008

®

Insurance solutions for the education community

We do know insurance for the education community — it’s what we do!

Home | Auto | Life | Living Benefits

Call 1-877-277-6847 or visit our Web site at www.YouAreOTIP.com.

If you work in the education community, our business was built to serve you.

We offer specialized hours, a live receptionist and comprehensive products and services specifically designed for our members. We are here to ensure an excellent service experience from buying a new policy through to making a claim. Our unprecedented member satisfaction rating proves that we are the best in the business.

Experience for yourself what a specialized insurance provider can offer you — call us today.

P. 5

5 The internationalization of higher education: Are we on the right track? Jane Knight Globally-respected internationalization scholar Jane Knight explores recent trends in the internationalization of higher education and raises searching questions about the unintendedconsequences.

10 Ethics and the training of international medical graduates Ross Upshur Canada Research Chair and Director of the University of Toronto’s Joint Centre for BioethicsRoss Upshur reflects on the ethical dilemmas involved in the recruitment and education ofmedical professionals from the developing world.

14 Cross-cultural challenges in teaching international graduate students Fengying Xu Based on new research, Fengying Xu analyzes the complex dynamics involved in the education of international graduate students and offers a prescription for the future.

19 Professors as public intellectuals George Fallis York University’s George Fallis explains why the university’s responsibility to contribute todemocratic life is just as critical as its role in economic development.

23 Digitizing and the meaning of knowledge Jean-Claude Guédon In a wide-ranging article, Université de Montréal’s Jean-Claude Guédon contemplates someof the spin-offs from the networked computer and the impact on scholarly communication.

27 Distributed workplaces and e-academics: What’s happening? Heather Kanuka and Terry AndersonUniversity of Alberta’s Heather Kanuka and Athabasca University’s Terry Anderson investigatethe challenges of creating academic workplaces and communities in cyberspace.

31 Humour Matters Steve Penfold Internationalization and a mob from Manitoba

32 Editorial Matters Mark Rosenfeld Going global

Oct-Nov 2008

Cover illustration: Marie-Claude Carignan

P. 10

P. 27

BOOKMARK THIS! Academic Matters

is now on the web!

Academic Matters has launched

a website featuring the electronic

version of the print magazine and

much, much more: web-exclusive

articles, reviews of films and

books, and a fiction section.

The web site will also give readers access to lively blogs writtenexpressly for our web site by opinion leaders in the academy — ontopics ranging from the art of teaching to the work/family life of a mid-career academic; from university architecture to publicpolicy and higher education; from the impact of new media onthe academy to a confessional from a sessional.

And since we want to create a space for people interested inhigher education to become involved, our readers are welcome tocomment on articles and blogs.

www.academicmatters.ca

4 |

Letters to the Editor

Dear Editor:

Kathy Cawsey's article (“Blame Facebook,” April-May 2008) makes a lot of sense. I found myselfagreeing with her reasonable efforts to find reasonable causes for the plague of plagiarism andother forms of cheating infesting institutions of tertiary education in Canada and elsewhere. ThenI had a little chat with my 12-year old son, Nick. He's at the local public school. He was browsingthe NASA website for a school project on planets.

“You shouldn't just copy that out, Nick,” I started. “I know,” says Nick, before his all-knowing patercan explain the ethics of plagiarism, proper attribution and so on. “I should put it in my own wordsand say where I got the ideas from, otherwise it's like cheating,” Nick continues. “That's great,Nick. Absolutely. Where'd you learn that?” “Our librarian told us last year, when she was showinghow to use the web.”

If my grade-sixer knows what's cheating, what’s not, I'm sure most students at college anduniversity do, too. I think they know and cheat anyway, and will go on doing so till the penaltiesmake it too costly. Or perhaps they just forgot what their grade six librarians told them.

Jamie S. Scott, Director, Graduate Programme in Interdisciplinary Studies & Professor,

Division of Humanities, York University

Dear Editor:

In “Blame Facebook,” (April-May 2008) the author attempts to make a point about the double standard that is sometimes present with regards to how academics handle citationsamongst themselves.

When the author throws around the term “schizophrenia” in attempt to illustrate her point(cultural schizophrenia, fundamentally schizophrenic, hampered by this schizophrenia) she is notbeing insightful, sly, witty, or humourous; rather she is demonstrating her complete lack ofunderstanding of the term and the nature of the illness. It demonstrates a level of understandingand appropriateness to the points she wishes to make that is on par with that of a bad TVsituation comedy or an intellectually lazy documentary.

Why stop at using schizophrenia as a way of contrasting ideas? Why not say university culture is fundamentally “diabetic” and that we have a Type 1 response and a Type 2 response to plagiarism? Why not use the BMI scale to describe the two positions and say university culturehas a fundamentally underweight or obese response to plagiarism? Why not say university culture is fundamentally “cancerous” and that we have a benign or malignant response to plagiarism? They are all as equally weak as the author's current example.

Raymond Leduc, Lecturer, University of Western Ontario

Dear Editor:

Thanks once again for coming up with another uniquely different edition of Academic Matters,“The Green University” (April-May 2008). I appreciate the extensive coverage of this seemingly new topic from different angles. All the articles included in this issue by eminentscholars and leading environmentalists have an elegant style of reflecting a diverse array of thoughts in a popular story-telling fashion. The exquisitely designed front cover has been an unexpected bonus!

Saikat Kumar Basu, PhD candidate, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Lethbridge

Academic MattersTHE JOURNAL OF HIGHER EDUCATION

LA REVUE D’ENSEIGNEMENT SUPÉRIEUR

Academic Matters is published three times a year byOCUFA, and is received by 24,000 professors, academiclibrarians and others interested in higher educationissues across Canada. The journal explores issues ofrelevance to higher education in Ontario, other provincesin Canada, and globally. It is intended to be a forum forthoughtful and thought-provoking, original and engagingdiscussion of current trends in post secondary educationand consideration of academe’s future direction.

Readers are encouraged to contribute their views, ideasand talents. Letters to the editor (maximum 250 words)are welcome and may be edited for length. To provide an article or artwork for Academic Matters, please send your query to Editor-in-Chief Mark Rosenfeld [email protected].

Reproduction of articles requires the permission of theauthor and publisher. Copyright in material accepted forpublication remains with the author. The publisher maychoose, however, to translate and/or reproduce materialin print and electronic form. All published materialexpresses the view of the author(s) and not the publisher.

Academic Matters accepte volontiers des articles écritsen angalis ou en français.

Publisher:OCUFA; Hentry Mandelbaum, Executive Director

Editor-in-Chief:Mark Rosenfeld, Associate Executive Director

Associate Editor:Wendy Cuthbertson

Art Direction:Eva Kiss, Neglia Design Inc., www.NegliaDesign.com

Editorial Board:Valerie Davidson, Glen Jones, Minelle Mahtani, Jeff McNairn, David Armstrong, Vinita Srivastava,Geoffrey Stevens, Marie-Josée Therrien

Advisory Committee:Bert Bruser, Kim Echlin, Lee Gowan, David Scott, Jason Wong

National Advertising Sales:Dovetail Communications

30 East Beaver Creek Road, Ste. 202Richmond Hill, ON L4B 1J2

Sales Manager:Beth Kukkonen, [email protected] (905) 886-6640 ext. 306

ISSN 1719-010X

For subscription information, please contact:[email protected]

Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to:Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations83 Yonge Street, Suite 300, Toronto, ON M5C 1S8

Phone (416) 979-2117 Fax (416) 593-5607www.ocufa.on.ca www.academicmatters.ca

Academic Matters OCT-NOV 2008

unionlogohere

Headlines from recent higher education newspa-

pers paint a colourful picture of some new

developments in internationalization—“Ten

universities in the United Kingdom, Ireland,

New Zealand, and Australia begin sharing education content

on iTunes U.” “China could be vulnerable to ‘education

dumping’ by overseas universities seeking to exploit the

rapid expansion of higher education in the country.”

“European Higher Education Fairs ‘conquer’ Vietnam.”

As we progress into the 21st century, the international

dimension of higher education is becoming increasingly

important and at the same time, more and more complex.

There are new actors, new rationales, new programs, new

regulations, and the new context of globalization.

Internationalization has become a formidable force for change

as evidenced by the following developments and initiatives:

• The creation of new international networks and consortia

• The growing numbers of students, professors, and

researchers participating in academic mobility schemes

• The increase in the number of courses, programs, and

qualifications that focus on comparative and interna-

tional themes

• More emphasis on developing international/intercultural

and global competencies

• Stronger interest in international themes and collabora-

tive research

• Steep rise in the number of crossborder delivery of

academic programs

• More interest and concern with international and regional

rankings of universities

• An increase in campus-based extracurricular activities

with an international or multicultural component

The world of higher

education is undergoing

fundamental changes—

internationalization is

one of the key drivers

and shapers of this

transformation. As with

all transformations,

there are consequences

—both planned and

unintended.

The internationalization of higher education:

Are we on the right track?

by Jane Knight

OCT-NOV 2008 Academic Matters | 5

6 | Academic Matters OCT-NOV 2008

• The investment in recruiting foreign students anddependence on their income

• The rise in the number of joint or double degrees• Growth in the numbers and types of for-profit

crossborder education providers• The expansion in partnerships, franchises, branch

campuses• The establishment of new national, regional, and

international organizations focused on internationaleducation

As internationalization changes to meet new challengesit is important to examine the key concepts that inform andshape the internationalization process and some of the unex-pected developments and results. The multiple and variedbenefits attributed to internationalization are acknowledged,but the primary focus here is on the unintended conse-quences that need to be addressed and monitored.

Confusion and complexity in what

internationalization means

Internationalization is a term that means different things todifferent people. While it is encouraging to see the increaseduse and attention given to internationalization, there is a great deal of confusion about what it means.

For some people, it means a series of international activ-ities such as: academic mobility for students and teachers;

international networks, partnerships andprojects; new international academic pro-grams and research initiatives. For othersit means the delivery of education to othercountries through new arrangementssuch as branch campuses or franchisesusing a variety of face-to-face and dis-tance techniques. To many, it means theinclusion of an international, intercul-tural and/or global dimension into thecurriculum and teaching learning

process. Still others see internationalizationas a means to improve national or world rankings of theirinstitution and to recruit the best and brightest of interna-tional students and scholars. International developmentprojects have traditionally been perceived as part of interna-tionalization, and, more recently, the increasing emphasis ontrade in higher education is also seen as internationalization.Finally, there is frequent confusion about the relationship ofinternationalization and globalization. Is internationaliza-tion the same as globalization? If so, why, how, and to whatend? If not, how is it different or what is the relationshipbetween these two dynamic processes? Thus international-ization is interpreted and used in different ways in Canadaand countries around the world.

A changing agenda?

In addition to questions about what exactly does itmean, there are other important issues being raised aboutinternationalization. Questions such as: What is the purpose

for internationalization? What are the expected benefits oroutcomes? What are the values that underpin it? What are, thepositive consequences? What are the unintended results?What are the negative implications? What about new risksattached to internationalization? How are institutions andpolicy makers responding to the competing interests withinthe domain of internationalization? What are the fundingimplications? How are governments and non-governmentalorganizations addressing the issue and moving forward? Arefor-profit and non-profit internationalization strategiescompatible? Does internationalization have a role in thebrain drain, homogenization/hybridization of culture, andinternational labour mobility? Clearly, there are importantissues and questions to address. As the internationalizationagenda changes, it requires close scrutiny.

Defining Internationalization

Internationalization is not a new term, nor is the debate overits meaning. Internationalization has been used for years in political science and governmental relations, but its popu-larity in the education sector has soared only since the early1980s. Prior to this time, “international education” and“international cooperation” were favoured terms and still arein some countries. In the 1990s, the discussion centred on differentiating “international education” from such overlap-ping terms as “comparative education,” “global education,”and “multi-cultural education.” But today, the nuances ofmeaning among “crossborder,” “transnational,” “borderless,”and “international” modes of education are more importantand causing much confusion.

The challenging part of developing a definition is theneed for it to be generic enough to apply to many differentcountries, cultures, and education systems. This is no easy task.While it is not the intention to develop a universal definition,it is imperative that it can be used in a broad range of contextsand for comparative purposes across countries and regions ofthe world. With this in mind, it is important to ensure that adefinition does not specify the rationales, benefits, outcomes,actors, activities, and stakeholders of internationalization asthey vary enormously across nations and from institution toinstitution. What is critical is that the international dimensionrelates to all aspects of education and the role that it plays insociety. Internationalization at national/sector/ institutionallevels is defined as “the process of integrating an international,intercultural or global dimension into the purpose, functionsor delivery of higher education. ”

This is intentionally a neutral definition of internation-alization. Many would argue that the process ofinternationalization should be described in terms of improv-ing quality and relevance of higher education, promotingcooperation and solidarity among nations, or advancingresearch on international issues. While these are noble inten-tions, and internationalization can contribute to these goals, a definition needs to be objective enough that it can beused to describe a phenomenon which is in fact, universal, but which has different purposes and outcomes, depending

on the actor or stakeholder. A significant development in the conceptualization of

internationalization in the last five years has been the intro-duction of the terms “internationalization at home” and“crossborder education”. Campus-based strategies are mostoften referred to as internationalization “at home” and off-campus initiatives are called “crossborder education”. As aresult of a heightened emphasis on international academicmobility, the “at home” concept has been developed to givegreater prominence to campus-based elements such as: theintercultural and international dimension in the teachinglearning process, research; extra-curricular activities; rela-tionships with local cultural and ethnic community groups;

as well as the integration of foreign students and scholars intocampus life and activities. It is important to point out thatinternationalization consists of these two separate butclosely-linked and interdependent pillars. Crossborder edu-cation has significant implications for campus-basedinternationalization and vice versa. Interestingly enough,many of the new developments and unintended conse-quences are associated with the crossborder aspects ofinternationalization.

New Developments and

Unintended consequences

THE BRAIN TRAINLittle did we know 25 years ago that the highly-valued andpromoted international academic mobility for students,scholars, and professors would have the potential to growinto a highly-competitive international recruitment busi-ness. Several countries are investing in major marketingcampaigns to attract the best and brightest talent to study andwork in their institutions in order to supply the “brain power”for innovation and research agendas. The complexities andchallenges related to academic and professional mobilityshould not be underestimated. Nor should the potential ben-efits. But it is impossible to ignore the latest race for attractinginternational students and academics for “brain power” andfor “income generation”. The original goal of helping stu-dents from developing countries study in another country tocomplete a degree and return home is fading fast as nationscompete for retaining needed human resources.

While “brain drain and brain gain” are well known con-cepts, research is showing that international students andresearchers are increasingly interested in taking a degree incountry A, followed by a second degree or perhaps internship

in country B, leading to employment in country C and prob-ably D, finally returning to their home country after eight to12 years of international study and work experience. Hence,the emergence of the term “brain train”. In the final analysis,whether one is dealing with brain gain, brain drain, braintrain or even brain chain, this phenomenon is presenting ben-efits, risks, and new challenges for both sending and receivingcountries. From a policy perspective, higher education isbecoming a more important actor and is now working incloser collaboration with immigration, industry, and thescience and technology sectors to build an integrated strategyfor attracting and retaining knowledge workers. The conver-gence of an aging society, lower birth rates, the knowledgeeconomy, and professional labour mobility is introducingnew issues and opportunities for the higher education sectorand producing some unanticipated results and challenges interms of international mobility.

QUALITY, ACCREDITATION, AND CREDENTIAL RECOGNITION: WHITHER THOU GOEST?It is forecast that by 2025 the demand for international educa-tion will grow to 7. 2 million students—a quantum leap from1.2 million students in 2000. Some, but certainly not all of thisdemand, will be met by student mobility. Consequently, thenumber of new providers—commercial companies and non-governmental entities—delivering programs to students intheir home countries is accelerating at an unprecedented rate.It is no longer just students, faculty, and researchers who areinternationally mobile. Full academic degree/diploma pro-grams are being delivered across borders, and branchcampuses or new, stand alone institutions are being establishedin developing and developed countries around the world.

While these new developments are intended to increaseaccess to higher education and meet the appetite for foreign cre-dentials, there are serious issues related to the quality of theacademic offer, the integrity of the new types of providers, andthe recognition of credentials. The increase in the number offoreign degree mills (selling “parchment”-only degrees) andaccreditation mills (selling bogus accreditations for programsor institutions), and rogue for-profit providers (not recognizedby national authorities) are realities that students, parents,employers, and the academic community now need to awareof. Who would have guessed two decades ago that internationaleducation would be struggling to dealwith fake degrees and accreditations;that is, academic credentials that areearned but not recognized and non-regulated “fly by night” institutions.Of course, it is equally important toacknowledge innovative develop-ments by bona fide newproviders andtraditional

The complexities and challenges

related to academic and

professional mobility should not

be underestimated.

OCT-NOV 2008 Academic Matters | 7


universities who are delivering high quality programs and legit-imate degrees through new types of arrangements andpartnerships (franchise, twinning, branch campuses). The per-petual issue of balancing cost, quality and access significantlychallenges the benefits and risks of crossborder education.

DOUBLE AND JOINT DEGREES: TWICE THE BENEFIT OR DOUBLE COUNTING?Improvement in the quality of research, the teaching/learn-ing process, and curriculum has long been heralded as apositive outcome of international collaboration. Throughexchange of good practice, shared curricular reform, closeresearch cooperation, and mobility of professors/students,there is much to be gained through internationalization. Arecent trend has been the establishment of joint programsbetween institutions in different countries that lead to double

(or multiple degrees) and in some cases ajoint degree, although the latter faces steeplegal constraints. Joint programs areintended to provide a rich international andcomparative academic experience for stu-dents and to improve their opportunitiesfor employment. But with all new ideas,come questionable adaptations and unin-tended consequences. For instance, insome cases, double degrees can benothing more than double counting one

set of course credits. Situations exist where two orthree credentials (one from each participating institution) areconferred for little more than the work load required for onedegree. While it may be very attractive for students (andpotential employees) to have two degrees from two institu-tions in two different countries, the situation can be describedas academic fraud if course requirements for two full degreesare not completed or differentiated learning outcomes notachieved. It is important to point out that there are manyexcellent and innovative joint and double degree programsbeing offered—especially by European institutions given thepriority they are given in the Bologna process. But one of theunanticipated consequences has been the misuse or abuse ofthis new internationalization initiative. More work on thequality assurance and credential recognition of doubledegrees is necessary because they span two or more jurisdic-tions and can be exempt from any national regulations.

Commodification and

Commercialization: For-profit

Internationalization

While the process of internationalization affords many ben-efits to higher education, it is clear that there are serious risksassociated with this complex and growing phenomenon.According to the results of the 2005 International Associationof Universities (IAU) Internationalization Survey, there isoverwhelming agreement (96 per cent of responding institu-tions from 95 countries) that internationalization bringsbenefits to higher education. Yet, this consensus is qualified

by the fact that 70 per cent also believe there are substantialrisks associated with the international dimension of highereducation.

Overall, the number one risk identified in the survey wasthe commodification and commercialization of educationprograms. Of interest is that both developing and developedcountries identified commercialization as the number onerisk, convincing testimony of its importance. A regional levelanalysis showed that four regions (Africa, Asia Pacific, Europe,and North America) ranked commercialization as the top risk.Latin America placed brain drain as number one, and theMiddle East ranked loss of cultural identify in first place.

The General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) hasbeen a wake-up call for higher education around the world.Higher education has traditionally been seen as a “publicgood” and a “social responsibility.” But with the advent of thisnew international trade agreement, higher education hasbecome a tradable commodity, or, more precisely in GATSterms, an internationally tradable service. Many see GATS aspresenting new opportunities and benefits, while others seeit as introducing serious risks. In addition, there are manywho question why the trade sector needs to impose regula-tions at all, given that the education sector has been using itsown agreements and conventions for decades.

At the heart of the debate for many educators is theimpact of increased commercial crossborder education onthe purpose, role, and values of higher education. The growthin new commercial and private providers, the commodifica-tion and market orientation of education, and the prospect ofnew trade policy frameworks are catalysts for stimulatingserious reflection on the role, social commitment, andfunding of public higher education institutions in society. Thetrinity of teaching, research, and service to society has tradi-tionally guided the evolution of the university and itscontribution to the social, cultural, human, scientific, andeconomic development of a nation and its people. Is the com-bination of these roles still valid, or can they be disaggregatedand rendered by different providers?

Finally, an unknown consequence is the impact of com-mercialization on the motivation for institutions tointernationalize. One of the leading rationales at the institu-tional level for internationalization is preparing graduates tobe internationally knowledgeable and interculturally skilledto live and work in more culturally diverse communities bothat home and abroad. An important question to ask is how anincreased emphasis on the “buying and selling” of educationacross borders will affect the nature and priority given to aca-demic, social, and cultural rationales of non-profitinternational education activities.

Cultural Diversity or

Homogenization?

The impact of new forms and types of international academicmobility on the recognition and promotion of indigenousand diverse cultures is a subject that evokes strong positionsand sentiments. Many believe that modern information and

| 9OCT-NOV 2008 Academic Matters

communication technologies andthe movement of people, ideas, andculture across national boundariespresent new opportunities topromote one’s culture to other coun-tries and to provide more chances forthe fusion and hybridization ofculture. Supporting this position isthe assumption that this flow ofculture across borders is not new atall, although its speed has been accel-erated and its modes broadened.

Others see both the movementand the speed as alarming. Theycontend that these same forces areeroding national cultural identitiesand that instead of creating new,hybrid cultures, they are homogeniz-ing native cultures—by which, inmost cases, they mean Westernized.Because education has traditionallybeen seen as a vehicle of accultura-tion, these arguments focus on thespecifics of curriculum content, lan-guage of instruction (particularly theincrease in English) and the teach-ing/learning process in internationaleducation. The impact of coloniza-tion on education has long been asubject of research, but internation-alization as a tool for neo-colonization, especially in terms of culture, requires for further study.

Internationalization of higher education was originallyconceived in terms of exchange and sharing of ideas, cultures,knowledge, values, etc. Formalized academic relationsbetween countries were normally expressed in bilateral cultural and scientific agreements. Today, the agreements areoften based on trade, economics, and politics, showing a significant shift from the original idea of academic exchange.Thus, there are two factors at play. One is the potential, andfor many, threat of cultural homogenization, and the secondis the weakening of cultural exchange in favour of more economically and politically-oriented relationships.

STATUS AND PROFILE: WORLD RANKINGSInternational and regional rankings of universities havebecome more popular and problematic in the last five years.The heated debate about their validity, reliability, and valuecontinues. But at the same time university presidents declarein their strategic plans that a measurable outcome of interna-tionalization will be the achievement of a specific position in one or more of the global ranking instruments.Internationalization is perceived by some institutions as ameans to gaining worldwide profile and prestige. The intensecompetition for world rankings would have been impossibleto imagine a mere 20 years ago, when international collabo-

ration among universities through academic exchanges anddevelopment cooperation projects were the norm. Of course,these types of activities still take place, but the factors drivinginternationalization are becomingincreasingly varied, complex, and com-petitive. Is international cooperationbecoming overshadowed by competi-tion for status, bright students,talented faculty, research grants, andmembership in global networks?

What next?

With innovation come new oppor-tunities, successes, and also threats.It is imperative that the international, inter-cultural, and global dimensions of higher educationcontinue to be proactive, responsive, and innovative, whilekeeping a close watch on unanticipated spin-offs and impli-cations. As internationalization matures through its ages andstages of growth, a critical eye and strong will are needed tomonitor intended and unintended results -for this year andtwenty-five years hence. AM

Jane Knight is a globally-recognized expert on the internationalization of higher

education. She is adjunct professor at OISE/University of Toronto and a Fulbright

New Century Scholar 2007-2008.

Ethics and the

training of

international medical graduates by Ross Upshur

The recruitment and education of medical professionals from the developing world raises a number of important ethical concerns.Canada Research Chair and Director of the University of Toronto’sJoint Centre for Bioethics Ross Upshur reflects on the dilemmasinvolved and the implications for the global health care workforce.

Consider the following headlines—“Ontario con-tinues to open more doors for internationallytrained doctors,” “Recruiting African healthworkers: A crime”, “4 million Canadians lack

access to a family doctors,” “International medical graduatescomplain of inability to use skills.” These headlines encapsu-late complex issues that are part of current public discourse.They reflect a world in which health care providers are in crit-ical short supply. They also underscore the importance of anopen dialogue and full consideration of the role developedcountries like Canada play in the global economy of healthcare providers.

I think it is essential that I situate myself with respect tothese issues. I bring three related but independent perspec-tives to this situation. First, I am an academic physician andpart of my professional responsibilities entail the clinicaltraining of medical students and postgraduate trainees infamily medicine. Our training site has been home to and hassuccessfully trained several international medical graduates.Secondly, I am the director of a bioethics centre at a Canadianuniversity. One of our major activities over the past decade has

Academic Matters OCT-NOV 200810 |


been to build capacity for bioethics, particularly researchethics in developing world contexts. To this end we havereceived funding from the National Institutes of Health in the United States to train mid-career professionals in research ethics and bioethics in order to return to their homeenvironment and create strong, robust local programmes.Thirdly, I am a founding Board Member of DignitasInternational, the humanitarian medical organizationpledged to address issues with respect to the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Here I have witnessed first hand how a criticalshortage of health care professionals hampers the ability ofimpoverished nations to respond to a devastating epidemic.

With respect to the first consideration, it has been a greatprivilege participating in the training of many internationalmedical graduates. Like graduates from Canadian medicalschools, they are a heterogeneous group—some possessingimpeccable judgment and medical skills with whom I wouldbe more than happy to have myself and my family cared for, while others are comparatively weak and perhaps irredeemable.

The need to fast track international medical graduatesstems from the need to provide opportunities for interna-tionally trained physicians to help offset shortages created bychanges in policies in the recent past for training domesticphysicians, which have resulted in the current supply/demand mismatch, particularly for primary care providers.One way of managing the shortfall of human resources in theCanadian context is to provide opportunities or put policiesin place to ensure physicians who have had medical trainingor have been practising in another comparable system are eligible for registration and licensure. The other componentof the recently released report on international medical grad-uates in the province of Ontario indicates the need to helpinternationally trained physicians enter medical practicewith transitional licenses and to provide more efficientassessment of clinical skills to allow integration into thesystem. Attention will be paid to provide support to interna-tional graduates that is culturally and linguisticallyappropriate and to develop “individualized assistance forthose who need to transfer their international medical skillsand knowledge into another area of the health profession ora related career.” While much of this seems to be sensible andbe an acknowledgement of the skills and practices of healthcare professionals trained elsewhere, it is important that theglobal health situation be considered.

The Global Crisis of

Health Care Workers

Removing barriers to practice and increasing thenumber of international medical graduates available toprovide care to Canadians without physicians seems like anideal solution to a recurring problem. However, such solu-tions need to be considered in terms of the current state ofglobal health. In terms of global health, there is a set of inter-dependent considerations that have resulted in some of theworld’s poorest countries showing regression in terms of

life expectancy and worsening of health indicators.Increasingly, in the developing world, health systems are fal-tering and failing to provide a minimal standard of healthcare. Much of this has to do with the ravages of HIV/AIDS,particularly in the sub-Saharan African context. HIV/AIDSis devastating health workers and health systems andincreasing workloads for health workers and reducingmorale. Current data from the World Health Organizationindicates that many states lack the capacity to provide aworkforce trained to shore up these faltering health systems.For example, there is an estimated shortage of more than4,000,000 health care workers globally. There is a large skillimbalance with a too heavy reliance in many sectors onphysicians and specialists. More to the point, though, is theglobal maldistribution which is noted to have been wors-ened by unplanned migration.

The Global Distribution of Physicians

Globally, there are within individual countries issuesinvolving urban/rural maldistribution, similar to whatoccurs in Canada. Highly qualified professionals concentratein urban areas leading to difficulties in service provision forrural communities. This type of maldistribution is even morepointed when we look at comparisons between countries.This issue is recognized as a significant threat to global healthequity. For example, in a recent commentary in the journal TheLancet,Francis Omaswa notes, “Over several decades a globalhealth workforce crisis has developed before our eyes. Thecrisis is characterized by widespread global shortages, mald-istribution of personnel within and between countries,migration of local health workers, and poor working condi-tions.” He notes factors such as increasing demand for care indeveloped countries where the demographic transitionresults in aging populations with complex health needs andthe inability to provide sustainable health resources withintheir own system.

It is interesting to reflect on the dynamics of theproblem. In 2005, Fitzhugh Mullan published an article inthe New England Journal of Medicine called “The Metrics ofPhysician Brain Drain.” In this article, he meticulously presented data on the countries of origin and migrationand emigration factors of the global physician workforce.His results demonstrate that in developed countries—suchas the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, andAustralia—23-28 per cent of physicians are internationalmedical graduates and that lower-income countries supplybetween 40 and 75 per cent of these international medicalgraduates. There is variability in terms of which low-income countries are supplying developed world contexts.For example, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australiarely heavily on physicians from South Africa. Furthermore,he found that nine of the 20 countries that have the highestoutflow of physicians are in sub-Saharan Africa and theCaribbean.

In the Canadian context, in terms of country of origin,the United Kingdom, South Africa, India, and Ireland


are the four mostcommon sourcecountries for inter-national medicalg r a d u a t e s .According toMullan’s data, in

2002 there were15,701 international

medical graduates prac-tising in Canada, representing

23 per cent of the physician workforce of which43.4 per cent arise from lower-income countries. The great netbeneficiary of the international flow of the physician work-force is the United States, which is the only country with a totalnet inflow of physician workforce.

What Mullan’s data shows is an extensive cycling ofphysicians amongst the four largest recipient countries.Interestingly enough, Canada still has a net outflow of physi-cian workforce relative to its inflow. According to the 2002data presented in this article, there were 68,906 physicianspractising in Canada with an inflow of 3,501 and an outflowof 9,105, 8,990 of whom left for the United States. In terms ofthe US physician workforce, there are 836,036 physicians esti-mated to be working with a net inflow of 13,573 and an anoutflow of only 671,519 of whom returned to Canada. Thus,we have strange dynamic of forces. The developed world isincreasingly reliant on attracting health care workers trainedelsewhere, and the United States is the greatest global magnetfor highly qualified health care professionals.

Is it a crime?

The response to this situation has been varied andperhaps the most strongly worded response is a viewpointarticle published in The Lancet in February of 2008. Ed Mills,a scientist with the British Columbia Centre for Excellence inHIV/AIDS at the University of British Columbia, along withother colleagues from Canada, Ireland, and South African,published an article entitled “Should Active Recruitment ofHealth Workers from sub-Saharan Africa be Viewed as aCrime?” The polemical title was intentional. The authorsargue that shortages of health care providers, particularly insub-Saharan Africa, have reached such critically low levelsthat it may rise to the level of a crime to continue to advertiseand recruit health care professionals from the developingworld. They point out dramatic reductions in numbers ofnurses, physicians, and pharmacists and also document themarked global disparities within and between nations. Forexample, in Malawi, the country where the NGO I am associ-ated with is operating, it was estimated in 2004 that there were0.02 physicians per 1,000 population and 0.59 nurses for1,000 population as opposed to Canada, where there were2.14 physicians per 1,000 population and 9.95 nurses per

1,000 population. The Malawi rates are amongst the lowest in the world, in a nation with a high prevalence of HIV/AIDS,tuberculosis and infant mortality.

Mills and colleagues take issue with the efforts of recruitment agencies establishing offices in South Africa tofacilitate recruitment, as well as castigating the behaviour ofcorporations that directly and actively recruit from SouthAfrica by using the method of touring recruitment workshops.They write

[a]lthough the active recruitment of health workers

from developing countries may lack the heinous

intent of other crimes covered under international

law, the resulting dilapidation of health infrastruc-

ture contributes to a measureable and foreseeable

public health crisis. There is now substantial evi-

dence of state and organizational involvement in

active recruitment of health workers from the devel-

oping to developed nations.

They further go on to argue that this is an important vio-lation of human rights of the people in Africa and that usingthe mechanism of international crime would strengthenaccountability of health systems to international standards.

What to do?

These are no doubt difficult issues and many Canadianswho are supportive of the fast tracking and integration ofinternationally-trained health providers, such as physiciansand nurses, are no doubt more concerned with ensuringaccessibility of care for themselves and their families.However, it must be recognized that current policies areindeed contributing to worsening health crisis globally.Serving our own needs contributes to further disadvantagingsome of the worst off countries and populations in the world.

The issues also speak to the clash between universalhuman rights and the need for certain sectors and healthsystems to be functional. In terms of international rightsstatutes, there is a right to health, but, similarly, healthworkers also have rights to mobility and the right to freelychoose where they wish to live and work. As well, many physi-cians seeking licensure in Canada come from areasexperiencing significant political instability and civil strifeand are rightly seeking a place of refuge where they can practise without threat to themselves or their family.

Are there progressive ways of thinking through thesedilemmas whereby the policy choices made by health systemsin Canada are not responsible for worsening healthinequities? It must be recognized that every physician thatleaves South Africa to work in Canada provides an opportu-nity for physicians in other African countries such as Malawi,Botswana, and Zimbabwe to seek employment in SouthAfrica’s a better health system and with higher remuneration.


Certain countries in sub-Saharan Africa, such as Malawi, arethe final ground of evacuation. That is, when physicians leavethese contexts, there is no feeder country that is providingthem with the necessary health professionals to provide carein replacement for those lost.

Mills and his colleagues have some suggestions for anappropriate way forward. They argue that governments,nation states and policy makers should provide incentives toaddress some of the core reasons for migration, includinginadequate remuneration, insufficient resources, heavy workloads, and lack of career paths, as well as risks to the indi-viduals health from providing care. They also point out theneed for finding ways to compensate nation states that havelost or contributed health workers to other systems. Forexample, they quote a report showing that Ghana lost£35,000,000 of its training investment in health care profes-sionals who went to the United Kingdom, whereas the UnitedKingdom saved £65,000,000 in training costs and was

granted £39,000,000 in service provision by virtue of thisasymmetrical relationship.

Larry Gostin, a leading expert in global health law atGeorgetown University, in a recent commentary in the Journalof the American Medical Association, points out that there is a need to discuss responsible recruiting that would addressequity in national and global circumstances. He suggeststhere needs to be much closer surveillance of migration patterns of health care professionals and, furthermore, thereshould be documentation of the impact of these immigra -tion patterns on health systems. He argues for increasingattention to human resource investment and planning.Destination countries need to build a supply of skilledworkers through education and training leading to nationalself-sustainability and limiting the need for active recruit-ment from developing world.

The issue of incentives is an important one. Gostinargues that a basic principle should be to take no more than afair share. Wealthy states should restrict active recruitment inlow-income countries that have severe nurse and physicianshortages. He also states, and this is a compelling point, thatthere should be an element of giving back. That is, wealthydeveloped nations such as Canada should be helping to build capacity in countries from which they recruit. There is avariety of means by which this could be facilitated. Academicinstitutions such as universities with professional trainingprogrammes in medicine, nursing, dentistry, pharmacy, andoccupation and physical therapy, could play a much greater

and proactive role in clinical training, health care workerexchanges. Policy makers should consider bilateral aid suchas cash payments and support for retention programmes,thus ensuring mutual benefits for both countries.

Concluding Thoughts

The issues raised by the global shortage of health careworkers are important and require public reflection and dis-cussion on our role and responsibility in global health. Arewe content to be contributing to worsening health inequitiesin countries from which we have helped decimate the healthsystem? It is imperative that we invest in our own academicinstitutions to ensure an adequate workforce. What about fasttracking and paying for health care workers to work in under-serviced areas?

It is clear that this is an issue that will not soon beresolved. It also provides us with a time to reflect upon ourinvestments in health systems and how best to secure the

conditions of health. It is interesting to note that the countrythat receives the most highly qualified professionals in theinternational global economy is one that does not have thebest health outcomes. This illustrates the point that thehealth care system is only one dimension of securing healthypopulations. It seems adequate human resources cannot besecured in even the most developed nations. Investments inother determinants of health such as ensuring potable waterand a safe food supply; providing adequate educationalopportunity and a secure, stable and peaceful environmentand more equitable distribution of economic resources maydo as much to ensure a healthy population as a functionaland well-staffed health care system. AM

Resources

For those interested to explore the data on the global health care work force, the World Health Organization has an interactive atlas:http://www.who.int/globalatlas/default.asp.

They also have extensive data on the global crisis in health care workers:http://www.who.int/hrh/en/index.html

References

References cited in this article can be found in the web version atwww.academicmatters.ca

Ross Upshur is a physician, Director of the University of Toronto’s Joint Centre for

Bioethics and Canada Research Chair in Primary Care Research. At the University

of Toronto, he is also an Associate Professor in the Departments of Family and

Community Medicine and Public Health Sciences.

Shortages of health care providers, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa,

may make it a crime to recruit healthcare professionals from the developing world.

| 9

Globalization has embraced the university, as it hassectors, owing largely to easy travel and a digitalinfrastructure that provides informationinstantly. Many academics appreciate the benefits

that cross-cultural exchange allows as the ivory tower turnsglobal. Knowledge now belongs to a world-wide arena inwhich we are all connected. While students and tutors havetravelled since the time of Marco Polo, today an unprece-dented number of international students study at Westernuniversities and, indeed, unprecedented numbers of Westernacademics teach abroad.

There are enormous challenges for teaching, studyingand research inside this globally-interdependent context. Inthe case of international graduate students, the language ofinstruction is not the only issue. They must learn differentresearch methodologies and understand a new set of complexcultural dynamics both in their living situations and in theirnew university workplaces. Very often their adaptation takesplace in a context of very little appreciation or understandingof the challenges of trying to perform according to the high aca-demic standards of a new language, culture, and workplace.And there are often the unconscious assumptions of the “inter-national faculty club” that promotes ideas and even behaviorslargely dominated by Western (predominantly American)intellectuals.

How are the challenges of teaching international gradu-ate students being met? To find out, between 2007 and 2008 Iconducted a year-long investigation that began with a survey.The survey was initially distributed on-line to a few potential

Based on her new research, Fengying Xu explores the complexdynamics involved in education of

international graduate students andoffers a prescription for the future.

Academic Matters OCT-NOV 200814 |

Cross-cultural Challenges in Teaching InternationalGraduate Studentsby Fengying Xu


participants personally known to me. These peoplewere invited to forward it to others interested in thestudy. Participants willingly responded to the surveywith anonymity. In total, 126 volunteers fromAmerica, Australia, Britain, Canada, Hong Kong,Macao, Mainland China, New Zealand, Singaporeand Taiwan completed the survey and returned it tome. Of them, 71 per cent were international gradu-ate students and 29 per cent professors. The collecteddata revealed four significant challenges in teachinginternational graduate students: definition of a dissertation, research readiness, departmentaladvising, and English writing skills.

All professor respondents considered a gradu-ate program design to be the most important elementin facilitating a student’s transition from student toindependent researcher. This transition usually con-tains four distinctive stages: a) facilitation, in whichstudents are hesitant in their new role and their pro-ductivity is minimal; b) early confidence stage,during which student has the self-confidence toundertake research but lacks a base of knowledgewhich results in low productivity; c) independentstage, when the student’s productivity is good andever improving; and d) advanced professional stage,when the student produces an independent project,including successful writing of a lengthy, formal treatise—a dissertation for a doctoral degree.

One American professor respondent com-mented: “A well-defined scope of the thesis will be asufficient and guaranteed factor for success.”

Surprisingly, 70 per cent of student respondentsfelt that undergraduate learning and graduate studiesappeared to be the same. One student wrote: “I alwaysget A’s for most of my courses, you know. I see noproblems in completing my graduate studies.”

These respondents failed to see that under-graduate course work is different from the readingassignments, tests and papers assigned to graduatestudents. They did not recognize that any thesis, anda doctoral dissertation in particular, is a completelydifferent academic project, with different expecta-tions, than work at the undergraduate level.

They did not understand that thesis writing (ina Western university) is considered to be the first steptoward research whose findings will be available toother scholars and benefit scholarship at a profes-sional level. This is a real challenge to all graduate students,domestic and international alike, if they are to compete withsuccess, globally.

The next challenge was students’ research readiness.Sixty-two percent of professors and 89 per cent of studentsreported that international graduate students were in generalill-prepared for conducting independent research projects.Since the numbers so clearly indicate that graduate students donot understand foreign research expectations, a few anecdotes

illustrate the ways in which this is the case.One student submitted a 20-word title for a

doctoral dissertation completed in North America.It was easily edited down to eight words without itsmeaning being changed. When the title failed tomeet the basic criterion for its discipline (maximum16 words), we can imagine the difficulties of readingthe dissertation itself.

In one two-year, full-time Masters program runat an Eastern university and coordinated by a pro-fessor from a well-respected North Americanuniversity, there was no research training compo-nent. Nevertheless, students were required toconduct an empirical study and to write a thesis inEnglish. In four years, only 6 (22 per cent) studentsout of 27 completed their studies. Their attempts(without support or training) consumed a tremen-dous amount of their energy and time, and they wereunsuccessful. The leadership in this program wassorely deficient as the coordinator becameembroiled in cross-cultural differences and unpro-fessional hiring practices. The faculty dean saidopenly: “These foreign devils, they are here to havefun, enjoy life, make money,” a remark that certainlydoes not set the tone for respectful, internationalacademic exchange.

In another case, a North American born teacherwas offered a position at an Eastern university after hehad completed a doctoral degree there. One day heasked at a faculty meeting how to write a research pro-posal. His question invited much skepticism abouthis ability to research, as all adequately-trained Ph.Dsknow how to write research proposals. A Westernprofessor suggested respectfully: “Students shouldperhaps have to take more rigorous training in actualresearch methods and be better prepared for the typeof research they are required to do.”

The third area of challenge for internationalgraduate students was the complementaryrelationship between how much support and inde-pendence international graduate students areexpected to have. Seventy per cent of student respon-dents mentioned their disappointment at theunavailability of their supervisors and commentedon the lack of departmental support, which, in theirview, were vital factors for their success.

One student described her experience as terri-fying because her thesis supervisor was always busy andimpatient with her questions.

Another felt lonely: “The department where I’m baseddoesn’t provide Ph.D students with a fixed workspace. I haveto study at home. This makes me feel rather isolated from thedepartment and lack a sense of community.”

Still another reflected with bitterness: “One day, I wasdoing an experiment on fetus cells in a lab, my supervisorpassed by and said to me, ‘I will never let my children do this


kind of work.’ This made me angry because she treated me asif I were inferior. She accepted me as a graduate student not foracademic advancement but for her personal promotion.”

On the faculty side, 60 per cent of professor respondentsremarked that the greatest challenge of international studentswas their lack of independence. They noted that internationalgraduate students rarely asked questions and needed a lot ofguidance and specific instructions. In an Eastern context, stu-dents’ dependence on their supervisors was found to be greaterthan that of those in a Western context. Such dependence some-times created frustration and displeasure in thesis advisers.

One English literature professor shared his disappoint-ment without any reticence: “So far, after six years in the FarEast, it would be difficult to say that supervising graduate stu-dents has had any positive aspects. Students are usually illprepared for graduate studies, so while their enthusiasm isobviously a plus, their cultural preparation, in areas of litera-ture, is all too often wholly inadequate for the task they wishto approach.”

Another vented her frustration with humour: “I camehere to teach, but at the end of the semester, I realized thatinstead of ‘teaching students,’ I had been taking what I wasteaching myself.”

In early 2007, I witnessed a senior Western professorresponsible for an Eastern graduate program who could notcope with his students’ heavy dependence and saw no way to

guide the professors working under him. He was overwhelmedby the inability to teach independence in both writing andresearch. He wrote to his colleagues who were attempting toteach and supervise graduate students: “Dear All…I’m sorry if Isometimes seem to be standing there speechless with despair,since I don’t really know what to do or suggest about it.”

The final challenge is perhaps the most crucial: thewriting needs of international graduate students. Seventy percent of professors felt that many of their students did not haveadequate skills to write effectively at a graduate level. ACanadian professor elaborated: “Generally they have limitedacademic writing ability in English, which makes it very diffi-cult for them to clearly present their thoughts and ideas orargue for a particular point of view. Text organization is alsooften a great challenge for them. I spend a lot of time correct-ing the form and organization of my international students’

papers and theses.” The same profes-sor also pointed out: “…due to againrelatively limited English languageproficiency, international studentshave a hard time handling heavyreading and synthesizing of the rele-vant points from the literature.”

It is interesting that only 40 percent of students acknowledged theirwriting difficulties, and many failedto realize its impact until theyreached the independent stage oftheir research.

A Chinese student studying at aBritish university reported puttingoff her graduation deadline twice as aresult of “my poor writing skills. Iregret not taking seriously what myteacher[s] had told me earlier, ‘it is the writing that is often the most challenging for non-native English-speaking students like you.’”

Another student currently pur-suing a doctoral degree at a Canadianuniversity felt ashamed of her writingdifficulty: “At the beginning I wasquite confident because I got A’s formost of my courses. But now I amstruggling with my writing. Once Iwrote an abstract, and all the readers

Seventy per cent of professors felt that

many of their international

students did not have adequate writing

skills for the graduate level.

VSO IS RECRUITING!

I think all of usas volunteers came in acknowledging that, yes, we may have skills, but we’re also going to learn a lot.

– Michele Hillier, Sri Lanka

““

Would you makeTHE JOURNEY?

With partners in Africa, Asia and the South Pacifi c, VSO places skilled volunteers overseas in more than 60

occupations and provides a comprehensive training and

support package.

We may have a life-changing opportunity for you in your fi eld.

EXPERIENCED TEACHERSTara Vanderwel develops training materials and holds regional teacher workshops in Mozambique.

ESL TEACHERSAlana O’Donnell teaches English to rural students in Cameroon.

EDUCATION MANAGERSAnnemiek Miller works with teachers and parents to help rebuild Rwanda’s education system.

www.vsocan.org 1.888.876.2911


said that the language reads ‘awkward.’ I was reallyembarrassed.”

But worst was the case of a doctoral studentwho simply discontinued his studies in his fourthyear and ending up being ABD, when he was bluntlytold: “If you can’t write, there will be no future for youat the university.” He was not even able to constructan error-free short paragraph of 100 words.

Writing challenges are so important that stu-dents sometimes become desperate. One Ph.Dholder, for instance, “confessed” to me that he hadpaid a native-speaker of English to write his disserta-tion during the final stage of his graduate studies.Another Ph.D recipient told me that his thesis hadbeen written up to the finish by his supervisor (calleda “gun hand” by the Chinese). Perhaps most dis-turbing was an MA thesis completed at a well-knownEuropean university that was a translation fromChinese into English, and the “translator” laterbecame a full professor at a Chinese university.

In The Besieged, Qian offered an interpretationof this unethical writing behaviour: obtaining adegree means writing a thesis capable of fooling thesupervisor; later lesson plans will surely be capableof fooling the students, and such individuals withempty souls but big egos will end up in the class-room, teaching.

To help international graduate students copewith their writing difficulties, it is important toensure that they understand how English words areadapted and arranged to form sentences and whywords have to be subjected to adaptation andarrangement in a certain way. Equally important,they should be familiarized with the guidelines andrequirements that govern academic and, profes-sional writing.

These two areas are complementary, with eachmutually supporting the other. The first one showshow clear communication can be achieved byanalysis, and the second shows how efficiency in theformation of meaning of their knowledge can beachieved by synthesis. Taken together, they can con-tribute to success in disseminating researchfindings.

When we step back to examine these elementsas a single phenomenon, we will realize that thechallenges we face are great. They require time, mentoring, and great patience. If hundreds of internationalprograms continue to be created without clear anticipation ofthese challenges, international graduate students are boundto fail in acquiring the skills essential to functioning as inde-pendent scholars. In consequence, many internationalcampuses will be littered with pilot programs that fail to fly.

A case in point is Stanford University, which has recentlylaunched a DARE Project (Diversifying Academia RecruitingExcellence) because the number of doctoral students has

decreased from 13 per cent to 8 per cent in the currentyear. No school can afford to ignore student enroll-ment. Particularly in the era of globalization, there isintense competition among universities in recruit-ing international students. Moreover, it has been atradition in many Western universities that interna-tional graduate students are seen as valuablemembers of the academic environment, teachingundergraduates and collaborating with their super-visors in research across national boundaries.

Where should we go from here? The challengeswe have seen are faced by both faculty advisors andinternational graduate students. To ensure successin graduate education in a world-wide academiccontext, teachers and students must create andshare a dynamic, respectful, mutually equal andrewarding relationship.

International graduate students’ advisersshould be aware of their advisees’ needs and assistthem in their integration into Western academicculture and expectations. In this regard, a Canadianprofessor suggested: “They should be put in touchwith some more ‘senior’ students for mentorship, oran association for support and networking so thatthe process of acculturation is smoother for thesestudents. This will allow them to focus more on theacademic challenges at hand.”

Likewise, international graduate studentsshould be fully aware that the secret of their successin graduate education lies in their ability to conquertwo major challenges.

One is how to conduct a scientific inquiry.They have to understand that what uniquely setsscience (seeking truth) apart from enterprise (e.g.,in politics, compromise is part of the game and inbusiness, profit is the primary concern) is a methodbased on logic. Research explores a body of sub-stantive knowledge, and the scientific method is away of assessing the validity of that knowledge.When trained properly and adequately in researchmethodology, they will have a method that embod-ies a variety of assumptions regarding the nature ofknowledge and the methods through which theycan discover knowledge and apply assumptionsabout the nature of the phenomena they are toinvestigate.

The other is how to write effectively.International graduate students should remember thatwriting a thesis or dissertation is not only something new butalso a very large and very independent project. It is by defini-tion a self-directed process, during which there are no weeklydeadlines from professors, no regular discussions with class-mates, no reading assignments, no one telling them what todo—they are on their own, writing something longer thanthey've ever written, and doing it without a net. This inde-pendence seems intimidating, but it enables them to build

For more information, including registration, please go to www.ocufa.on.ca

Speakers include:

Alison M. KonradProfessor of Organizational Behaviour, Ivey School of Business, University of Western Ontario

Angela HildyardVice-President, Human Resources and Equity, University of Toronto

Joy MightyDirector, Centre for Teaching and Learning, Queen’s University

Audrey KobayashiProfessor of Geography, Queen’s University

Judy RebickSam Gindin Chair for Social Justice, Ryerson University

Valerie DavidsonNSERC/HP Chair for Women in Scienceand Engineering, University of Guelph

Tess Hooks Department of Sociology, King’s University College, University of Western Ontario

Making Connections: Advocacy and University WomenPromoting equity on university campuses

OCUFA Status of Women Conference 2009January 24–25, 2009 Sutton Place Hotel Toronto, Ontario


writing skills which they will use throughout their career. Ifthey can’t learn this or ignore this important part of their grad-uate studies, their whole education or future professionalcareer will suffer. For some scholars, the essence of writing isstyle and structure; great ideas are immaterial. Thus, interna-tional graduate students must, at the outset, sharpen theirEnglish writing skills systematically, for writing is an earnedskill acquired through a slow process and there is no quick fixfor writing difficulty. Otherwise, time will disillusion them aswith the above ABD, first flattered for talent and the passionof being good at school until reaching the stage of “puttingyour research findings in writing.”

Some of my own experiences as an international grad-uate student from China over a decade ago are illustrative ofthe direction that could be taken. I was fortunate to study ina program much better designed than many existing ones. I received a rigid training under the guidance of a committeecomprising five highly professional and competent scholars,who were also culturally sensitive and caring. For researchmethodology alone, I took six courses, well over half thenumber of courses required of many current students fortheir entire graduate study program. I would not have beenable to complete my dissertation of nearly 400 pages withoutthe availability and constant encouragement of my thesissupervisor, one of the national and international leading

scholars in my discipline. I have learned from my experiencethat for non-native speakers of English the biggest challengeis, more often than not, how to succeed in academic writtencommunication, which is also part of research process.

Writing makes us think better. Thinking better makesour writing better. Writing better helps us arrive at a betterresearch product. If we are unable to share or disseminate ourresearch findings with the scientific community, mostly in awritten form, our research is incomplete, or perhaps evenworthless. Therefore, writing should not be understood as asub-skill nor treated as a service course at university. Only inthis way is it possible that more international graduate stu-dents will grow into well-trained independent researchers,and fewer will turn out to be scholars who can’t write, andhopefully, none will be an academic who feels forced toperform with deception and pretense, eking out a meagerexistence within the academic community. AM

Fengying Xu, who received her Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics from the University of

Ottawa and has taught in and outside Canada, is currently teaching at Algonquin

College in Ottawa.

References:

References cited and the research methodology can be found in theweb-version of this article at www.academicmatters.ca


York University’sGeorge Fallis explainswhy the university’s

responsibility to contribute to

democratic life is justas critical as its role in economic development.

Professors as Public

Intellectualsby George Fallis


T he responsibility of professors is to carry forwardthe mission of the university. These responsibilitiesare often summarized as teaching, research, andservice. In today’s university, professors are engaged

in undergraduate education, professional education, andgraduate education; they are engaged in research both basicand applied; and they provide service to their institution byparticipating in its collegial self-governance.

To fully comprehend the mission of the modern uni-versity, we also need to understand its relationship to thesociety that supports it. Our universities have certain tasks andin return are financially supported by government operatingand capital grants, tuition fees, funds from research councils,contracts with corporations, and by private philanthropy. Butto ensure the free inquiry necessary for their tasks, universi-ties are autonomous institutions. Their professors andstudents have academic freedom. To protect this institutionalautonomy and academic freedom, universities operate undera system of collegial self-governance.

The university, in its social contract with democraticsociety, has been granted autonomy in pursuing its mission.But this does not mean that the university can proceedwithout further consultation. The social contract implies anobligation on the university to reflect upon these tasks, to

articulate their value in society, to defend them when they arethreatened, but also to reconsider them in light of evolvingsocial needs.

In recent years, the research mission of the university hasbeen extended under the pressures of two trends. The first isthe shift in government policy toward treating support foruniversity research as part of economic policy. The second isthe demand that commercialization of research become anexplicit responsibility of the university.

We have entered a “new economy” in which the pros-perity of a nation will depend upon how it generates andadopts new technologies: ideas will explain the wealth ofnations. John Evans, former president of the University ofToronto, declared: “We now live in a world in which theorganized ability to create and commercialize new ideas is thecritical determinant of economic success.” It is little wonderthat democratic governments now ask universities—and theirprofessors—to take on this task.

This responsibility to economic life will not, nor shouldit, go away. Given the nature of technological change and the

dynamism of globalization, this new responsibility is legiti-mate: the university is a place to create human capital, toundertake research, and then to help commercialize it.However, we should add another responsibility to the uni-versity’s mission: the university has a responsibility tocontribute to democratic life. The needs of our democracy ina knowledge-based society are just as pressing as the needs ofour economy.

Each component of the bundle which is the university—undergraduate education, the professional schools,graduate education and research—has a crucial role in theliberal democracy of post-industrial society. Most funda-mentally, because equality of opportunity is essential fordemocracy, university education in all its forms must beaccessible to all who are capable and willing. Also, under-graduate education is, in part, an education for democraticcitizenship. The universities are the gateways to the profes-sions. The practice of all professions involves an imbalancebetween the professional and the client; and virtually all pro-fessions have been granted self-regulation rather than beingregulated by government. Therefore, in a democratic society,it is important that all professionals be attentive to issues ofthe client’s interest and the public interest. The universityshares the responsibility to educate professionals for this

attentiveness, on behalf of our democracy. In our knowl-edge-based society, political choices require assessment ofcomplex questions. The university can contribute the under-standings from scientific, social scientific and humanisticresearch to political deliberation.

The democratic mission of the university requires thatprofessors accept the role of public intellectual. This rolederives from the responsibility (and opportunity) to conductresearch, under the guarantees of autonomy and academicfreedom. Unlike other democratic institutions such as polit-ical parties or the media, the university is committed toresearch; it is an institution which allows sustained criticalreflection and analysis.

The concept of a “public intellectual” is elusive, if com-monly invoked. Writers use the term to mean widely differentthings. Many writers use the term “intellectual” or “publicintellectual” to refer to the role of social critic. Edward Said, inhis 1993 BBC Reith Lectures published as Representations of theIntellectual, declares the true intellectual is “someone whoseplace it is to publicly raise embarrassing questions, to con-

Usually social criticism is regarded as an indirect

implication of academic freedom, not an

explicit responsibility. It should be made explicit.


front orthodoxy and dogma…to be someone who cannot beeasily co-opted by governments or corporations. …. the prin-cipal intellectual duty is the search for relative independencefrom such pressures. …. to speak truth to power.”

It has long been recognized that academic freedomallows social criticism without risk of losing your job; butusually social criticism is regarded as an indirect implicationof academic freedom, not an explicit responsibility of the uni-versity to political life. It should be made explicit. In aknowledge-based society, sustained critical reflection andanalysis are essential to the articulation and evaluation ofalternatives which are needed in the electoral process.

Universities have always been an important source ofsocial criticism. Indeed, social criticism is inherent in muchof the research enterprise of the social sciences and branchesof philosophy such as political, legal, or moral philosophy.The work by the scholar to describe and explain the world isoften undertaken with the hope that this knowledge willallow society to replace what is with something better. Andultimately society’s support for this research is given in thebelief that the new knowledge will be of benefit. Certainly, the massive government support for social science researchwhich helped create the postwar university had such a motivation.

Social criticism is not the sole purpose of the social sci-entist or political philosopher. Nor do social scientists andpolitical philosophers always address issues of right andwrong, justice, and equity. Certainly, many social scientists inthe university have been political radicals or ardent reform-ers. But many, indeed most, professors in these fields seethemselves as impartial, neutral scientists providing objectivedocumentation and analysis of social phenomena. Yet, it isdifficult to separate entirely social science and social criticism.Not each professor must be critic, but the university as a wholemust accept the role. However, it is neither an easy role, norwithout risks.

Although some professors and students see themselvesas “activists” and welcome the role of critic, most professorsand students are uneasy. Boards of governors, presidents, andsenior administrators would prefer social criticism remain anindirect implication of autonomy and academic freedom,rather than an explicit responsibility to society. The universityrequires the support of the centres political and economicpower; the role of critic could bring it into conflict with the powerful.

The dangers to the university of this role are evident andmany. Research and teaching, which should be foundedupon curiosity and tolerance, might become advocacy andintolerance. It might be that social criticism, like participa-tion in partisan politics, spoils the habits of goodscholarship. On the other hand, some social theorists arequite explicit in embracing this role: they identify universityintellectuals and students as fundamental actors in socialchange. But however much the activists want the university

to be the primary agent of social change, this is surely notwhat society wants under the social contract. The university’sobligation, as an institution, is to remain neutral; its auton-omy is at risk when activists demand that the university as aninstitution take explicit political stands.

In accepting the role of critic, professors risk betrayingthe essential character of disinterested free inquiry, civildebate, and institutional autonomy. This risk is real, and uni-versities must guard against it vigilantly. Critical ideas andalternatives must be advanced according to the scholarlycanons of respectful, evidence-based exchange.

We should use the term “public intellectual” in its broad-est interpretation, which includes the role of critic, of theoutsider speaking truth to power, but much else. In one sense,all professors are public intellectuals. New knowledge is dis-seminated—publicly—in the classroom through the teachingof undergraduate and graduate students, through continuingeducation, and through the publication of research. But, dis-semination must not end there. The public has financed thisresearch and therefore professors have a responsibility todiscuss their research with the public. A professor becomes a‘public’ intellectual when their writing or speaking reachesoutside the university.

A professor is a public intellectual if their academicwriting, produced according to the canons of scholarship intheir discipline and intended as a contribution to scholarlyknowledge, is accessible to the educated public. Such writingis more and more rare, but can be found most often in thework of historians. It can also be found in the work of someliterary and cultural critics, and some political scientists, soci-ologists and philosophers. Reviews of their scholarly bookscan be found in the book sections of newspapers in large met-ropolitan areas.

Alternatively, a professor is also a public intellectual ifthey write and speak to explain their discipline and theirresearch to the public. The research need not be related topublic or cultural affairs. The research might help us under-stand why the sky is blue, or be a new biography of ElizabethI, or be an economic analysis of trade along the Silk Road inHan dynasty China. The new knowledge is valued for its ownsake. While often described as “popularizing” academicresearch, this is too pejorative a characterization. It is betterseen as inviting the public to join in the life of the mind, to joinin the world of ideas. This life and these ideas are valued fortheir own sake. Such a public intellectual contributes toliberal learning, not in the classroom, but in the wider public.To be such a public intellectual is to contribute to lifelongliberal learning.

However, almost all publishing by professors is nowthrough academic journals and academic presses; theintended audience is other professors, students, and special-ists. Little writing is directed to the public. The professor’s roleas a public intellectual has diminished because of the disciplinary organization of universities and increasing


specialization in the search for new knowledge. The verysuccess of the research enterprise has alienated it from thesponsoring public.

It is obviously in the interests of professors and the uni-versity to speak publicly about the research enterprise, toengage the public imagination with the process and to explainthe findings in accessible language. When the public isengaged, they will be more likely to support universities. Butthe role of public intellectual cannot be motivated by thisinstrumental purpose; rather it must be recognized as an obli-gation to democratic society. In post-industrial society,theoretical knowledge and new knowledge are increasinglyimportant. Society finances the research at universities. Theuniversity, with its enormous privileges, has an obligation tomake this knowledge as accessible as possible, to disseminateit as a public intellectual.

Universities have not emphasized this responsibility.Professors enjoying a profile as public intellectual invariablysay that most of their colleagues are wary (they say that it takesyou away from real research, or that addressing the publicrequires too much dumbing-down); other colleagues arehostile (you have given up the pursuit of truth for the pursuitof celebrity); and some are simply envious (you are successful

and I wish could be like you). The systems of evaluation in aca-demic life are not equipped to evaluate the contributions ofpublic intellectuals to public dialogue; promotion and tenurecommittees seldom give these contributions much attention.This needs to change. The first steps would be to recognizeexplicitly this mission of the university and then to developmeans to evaluate public contributions. Evaluation will be difficult, but no more difficult than evaluation of teaching.Then public contributions can be given weight in tenure, promotion and merit decisions. The time spent as a publicintellectual is time spent on the mission of the university in ademocratic society.

Given this mission, we can ask that universities be judgedand held accountable for their contributions to democraticlife. Great universities should be judged not just by the qualityof their research, the learning of their students, and the contributions of their graduates, but also by the contribu-tions of their professors to democratic society as public intellectuals. AM

George Fallis is a professor in the Department of Economics and the Division of

Social Science at York University and author of Multiversities, Ideas, and Democracy

(University of Toronto Press, 2007).


Back to Origen, the codex and

the Hexapla

recent book by Anthony Grafton and MeganWilliams provides an interesting, if somewhatunepected, backdrop to the observations thatfollow. It recounts the extraordinary efforts under-

taken by Origen in the first half of the 3rd century CE to putsome order in the biblical tradition. It also ties this exegeticaland critical effort to the innovative use of a contemporarytechnology: the codex. Instead of using the noble scroll,Origen decided to take advantage of the page structure of thehumble codex. Dividing each of two facing pages into threecolumns each, he began placing six texts side by side tocompare them word for word. This monumental undertak-ing ultimately required many codices and is known as theHexapla. Nothing but late fragments of the Hexapla survive.

Origen wanted to fix the biblical text, but, by making hismethod transparently clear, he also wanted to convincepotential critics. Technology and linguistic skills were thustightly knit to produce a foundational text. Ultimately, it

would form the basis for the Christian canon.Origen also introduced a form of critical reading that

was rather uncommon in the 3rd century. Until then, writingwas little more than a way to externalize memory. Reading wasreally a way to help reciting. The reader read aloud and, so tospeak, was inhabited by the text projected by his own voice.Critical reading, by contrast, seeks to scrutinize the text andengineers a psychological space, a sense of distance, where thereader has an opportunity to exert his critical faculties.

Whether a reader of the Hexapla read aloud or not is ofsecondary importance here, even though there are intriguinglinks between critical and silent reading, but more crucial isthe fact that reading the Hexapla is an activity aiming at ques-tioning the text by reading laterally between several versions.The Hexapla layout encourages a skeptical and critical atti-tude. Reading becomes an analytical tool that questions textsas much as it deciphers them.

There is a deep irony in Origen's heroic effort. His aimwas to provide a stable scriptural foundation for the ChristianChurch, but he failed to see that the critical method he usedcould never come to closure. To this day, scripture specialists

In a wide-ranging article, Université de Montréal’s Jean-ClaudeGuédon contemplates some of the spin-offs from the networked computer and the impact on scholarly communication.

by Jean-Claude Guédon

A


continue to debate and question the authenticity of variouselements of the canon. Critical attitudes foster dynamic dia-logues, not static solidity. Much of the Western intellectualtradition constantly grapples with this profound dilemma. It has given rise to a phrase that is really a kind of oxymoron:a “critical edition”. A critical edition, although it presents itselfas definitive, can never be more than a step in a never-endingjourney. A canon established according to the rules and pro-cedures explored by Origen had to meet the same fate.

The point of recounting this somewhat obscure phaseof Christian history is to show that making use of certain communication technologies can transform our relation-ship to documents, as well as their functional, and ultimatelycultural, meaning. It also shows that our intellectual tradi-tion is pulled into two opposite directions: a quest for stableknowledge through a never-ending critical scrutiny

Changes in Scholarly Communication

after the Second World War

After decades of conquests, some silent, some less so, thedigital context is coming close to forming the new culturalenvironment within which we must learn to live, create andthink. Now that we are fully alerted to the fact that mixingtechnology and knowledge can bring about unexpected aswell as unintended consequences, we should certainly try tospot some of these. In other words, what are some of thechanges bound to affect academic life most in the next coupleof decades?

As a way to explore this complex issue, let us examinerapidly the question of scholarly and scientific communica-tion as it is being transformed by the advent of the networkedcomputer. Before the computer made its presence felt, scientific publishing had already undergone a number of sig-nificant transformations. For example, a bibliographic crisisemerged after the Second World War. It led to various solu-tions, the most significant of which was Eugene Garfield'sinvention of the Science Citation Index (SCI). However, thedesign of SCI rested on a series of decisions concerning inclu-sion and exclusion rules that contributed to defining scienceas a two-tier system: “core journals” , once identified, wereseparated from the rest.

The success of SCI led to the recognition by some astutebusinessmen (e.g. Robert Maxwell) that “core journals” alsoformed an inelastic market. In an inelastic market, demand is

little affected by price. The reason was that many librarianswere attempting to buy at least the particular set of titlesdefined as “core” by SCI. This perception triggered a spiral ofrapidly increasing subscription prices. Ultimately, the risingcosts of journals came to be known as the “serial pricingcrisis”. It continues to this day and explains many of the diffi-culties our libraries have been meeting in trying to providedecent access to the needed literature. If access to the neededliterature is often less than satisfactory, the fault is not thelibrarians'; neither is it the university budget, however con-strained it has been. The fault largely lies with big commercialpublishers and some scientific associations that insist onmaking enormous profits by exploiting the market of scien-tific journals once it had become inelastic.

One consequence of this situation has been the declinein library purchases of monographs. This is due to shiftingpart of the acquisition budget to journals to keep up with thedemand of scientists. As social sciences and humanities relyheavily on monographs, they have suffered most from thisnew economic context of scholarly publishing . Then univer-sity presses began to adapt by shifting their publishingstrategies. When universities also stopped subsidizing theirpresses, the situation grew worse. University presses increas-ingly hesitated to publish works that, although excellent, were judged to be too esoteric. Marketability increasinglytrumped excellence even as university presses began tobehave more and more like commercial presses.

The first victims of this trend were the young professorswho desperately needed a first monograph to ensure theirpromotion and their tenure. Nearly 10 years ago, RobertDarnton analyzed the growing difficulties of monographsand those of young scholars when they try to transform a dissertation into a book. In 2002, Stephen Greenblatt, thenpresident of the Modern Language Association, issued apublic letter that reiterates many of the same points. BothDarnton and Greenblatt reflected on the consequences of theserials pricing crisis.

The Digitization of Scholarly

Communication and its Consequences

The developments just described were happeningwithout the benefit of computers or networks. However,when their presence began to be felt, it changed the way inwhich access to scholarly literature was transacted. Taking a

Changes in communication

technologies shift our relations to

documents and transform the

meaning we ascribe to their existence.


leaf out of the software industry, commercial publishersdecided that digital materials could not be sold, as books andjournals traditionally were, but simply licensed for use.

Licensing provided commercial entities with new levelsof control over their materials, while placing the libraries in amuch reduced position: librarians could buy licences, butthey also had to make sure that access was restricted to legiti-mate members of their communities. Building collections inthe absence of ownership lost much of its meaning.Preservation responsibilities seemed to fall into the lap ofpublishers, despite their ambivalence. In short, the librarianappeared to be in a position not so different from that of a gas-station attendant placing the nozzle of the knowledgepump into some digital reservoir but only after havingchecked the credentials of the person making the request.

This very first phase in the transition to the digital worldreminds us that in any communication system, it is importantto look at who can produce documents, who can preservethem, who can organize them in order to facilitate retrieval,who has access, and what can be done with the accessed doc-ument. A number of rules long organized around copyrightlaws were suddenly superseded by licensing rules that are con-tractual in nature. Also, 10 years ago, the art of contractinglicences was quite esoteric among librarians. Meanwhile, weacademics were going on with our usual business, largelyimpervious to the sea change that was taking place under ournoses. As authors, academics act largely like peacocks andwant to be featured in the “best” journals, whatever the costto the library; as readers, academics want access to everythingand if it is not available, they view it either as the fault of thelibrarians or as the responsibility of the university adminis-trators. Again, as readers, academics simply do not seepublishers and pricing issues. The same is almost as true ofacademics as authors: how many know the publisher of acoveted journal title?

Librarians reacted remarkably fast to the new digitalcontext. Within a few years, they had formed consortia andtaught themselves to negotiate better terms. Publishersreacted in their turn and began playing the bundling game.You want x hundred titles from our set of journals. We willlicense them for y hundred thousand dollars. However, if youtake the whole set, we shall increase the total bill by only z percent (of the order of 10-15 per cent at most). The result of thistactic often called the “Big Deal” has been that library budgetshave increasingly been been used to pay large commercialpublishers (particularly Reed-Elsevier, Springer, Wiley, andTaylor and Francis). Concurrently, it led to a decrease in sub-scriptions to independent association journals and smallerpresses that faced increasingly difficult financial conditions.This pressure led to further concentration in the publishingworld. The end result is that we now face an oligopolistic pub-lishing system. Very few firms dominate academicpublishing, and they extract profits that can reach and evenexceed 40 per cent before taxes. Let us remember that we aretalking about research articles made possible by large

amounts of public money supporting research and universi-ties. They are given away by their authors when they sign theirrights away. These articles are peer reviewed for free by otherresearchers. The result is then sold to libraries, often sup-ported by public money.

The trend toward concentration in the publishingindustry has also meant that, increasingly, the initiative of cre-ating new journals rests with publishers. With few exceptions,they are the only players with the financial resources to investin a new publication. As a result, they also acquire a voice inthe selection of suitable editors. Being an editor is a powerfulposition in any academic field and being selected for this roleamounts to a kind of promotion that stands beyond a full professorship. These gatekeepers of knowledge are selectedthrough a complex interactive process between commercialinterests and intellectual developments. By their choices anddecisions, they are then in a position to affect the careers ofmany of their peers.

Also, publishers can closely monitor how researchersmake use of their collections of articles through their servers.As a result, they are in a position to see which universities areusing what part of the literature. The potential for conductingintelligence on research efforts , although rarely discussed or even mentioned, is very real, and privacy clauses protectonly individuals, not institutions. Very little is known aboutthis question, but in an age that characterizes itself as a“knowledge economy”, with competition taking on globalproportions, and with concerns about a “war on terrorism”,imagining that such possibilities exist does not require greatintellectual effort.

Reacting to some of the

Consequences of Digitization

through Open Access

Digitization and global networks have placed muchmore control and power in the hands of publishers. However,it has also spurred reaction. The most important to date hasbeen the “open access movement”. Brought about by scien-tists' and scholars' attempts to develop new electronicjournals of their own, the largely dispersed efforts in favourof open access finally coalesced into a loose association of sci-entists and a number of institutions. In February 2002, underthe aegis of the Open Society Institute and its InformationProgramme, a manifesto was made public. Known as theBudapest Open Access Initiative, it recalled the tradition andnecessity of open dialog in scholarship, and it proposed toachieve the open access objective through a combination ofself-archiving efforts by authors themselves and through thecreation of open access journals.

First ignored by publishers, the movement began to gainsome traction when the first open access journals emerged.Both the commercial firm Biomed Central and the non-profitorganization Public Library of Science (PloS) began to fieldopen access journals with a financial strategy that essentiallyshifted the cost of publishing upstream, on the side of the


authors or their proxy (funding agency, covering institution,etc). Shortly afterwards, libraries developed institutionalrepositories where authors could deposit their articles and seethem properly curated. Interoperability concerns were alsoaddressed with the Open Archives Initiative Protocol forMetadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH) protocol.

The open access movement became even more crediblewhen a large number of journals and publishers offered a con-fusing, yet real, opportunity for self-archiving. From onepublisher to the next, the rules differ, but, as they are listedin a web site, self-archiving is facilitated. At the same time,some open access journals, particularly PloS journals, quicklyacquired a very enviable level of prestige. The early canard thatopen access journals were little more than vanity presses hadbeen clearly refuted.

For open access, the most essential step emerged whenfunding agencies began to realize that it was to everybody'sbenefit, including their own, to have open access to the litera-ture they funded. The Wellcome trust in the UK, was a leaderin this regard, but some American and European institutionsfollowed quickly. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) inthe United States became a battle ground between publishersand open access supporters. Ultimately, open access wondespite the deep pockets and lobbying efforts of the publish-ers. In December 2007, the large omnibus law signed byPresident Bush contained a provision stating that all researchpapers financed by NIH had to be deposited in NIH’s reposi-tory at most 12 months after publication. Other fundinginstitutes began to follow suit, notably Canadian Institutes ofHealth Research in Canada.

More recently still a new trend has begun to emerge.Starting with the Faculty of Arts and Science at Harvard, uni-versity senates or councils in various universities are grapplingwith the open access issue. In the case of Harvard, it was unan-imously decided that faculty had to deposit their articles in asuitable university repository. It now looks as if a growingnumber of faculties and universities are moving in the direc-tion of mandating the deposit of research articles in openaccess repositories. Modalities change from one institution tothe next, in particular time delays, but the trend is clear.

What the ultmate consequences of these transforma-tions will be are unknown. Also, our present situation is highlyconflictual. The battles waged in the governmental corridorsin Washington, Brussels and, more locally, Ottawa, contribute

to this obscurity. Finally, we must not discount the fact thatdigital document are also very recent. “Digital Incunabula” —the production of scholarly works in digital form—is a phrasethat Tufts University Professor of Classics and scholar ofdigital technology Gregory Crane has floated with somesuccess, and indeed it fits the present situation.

Open Access and the New Possibilities

Offered by Digitization

As open access takes on strength and visibility, new pos-sibilities appear. The capacity to link documents togetherconstantly grows in importance. Linking research articles withtheir underlying data is also being increasingly discussed.Researchers are not yet used to sharing data with others. But,with computers, new forms of exploitation of vast corpora ofdocuments and data are becoming possible. Even a perfunc-tory use of Google makes this point clear. In the end, one mayeven wonder whether the venerable article and the mode ofpublishing it has generated for the last three and a half cen-turies will make sense much longer in the new environment.

In the end, exactly as Origen has taught us, the changesin communication technologies shift our relations to docu-ments and transform the meaning we ascribe to theirexistence. If this is true, then it is time to go back to funda-mentals. Fundamentally, science is open knowledge and itsenergy flashes out of the shock of ideas. The end result of thisfundamentally agonistic activity is a critical edition of sorts,always striving to reach perfection, yet never ended or ending.Seen from on high, science is little more than an endless con-catenation of texts that correct or refute each other, topic bytopic, argument by argument, fact by fact. One might say,however scandalous this might sound at present, that scienceis a kind of Wikipedia, but a Wikipedia where attribution isclosely monitored and where participation depends on cre-dentials. If this characterization of science succeeds incapturing some of its essence, it becomes legitimate to askwhether the researcher will still be an “author” of “articles” 30years from now. The author form is a child of print, and author-ship is different from attribution. Whether authorship will stillbe needed in a few decades is a question well worth asking.

The answer is far from certain. But, in one way oranother, the conversation between academic peacocks will goon, endlessly striving to reach the impossible Holy Grailthrough endless critical efforts. This Holy Grail is sometimescalled the big TOE (Theory of Everything). It works somewhatlike a canon as imagined by Origen. In fact, the new Hexaplais the complex hypertext of scientific knowledge made possi-ble by the web. But a choice remains before us: will scientistsand scholars finally recover the control over the tools neededfor their great conversation, or will it increasingly be takenover by commercial interests? This is what open access is all about. AM

Jean-Claude Guédon is professor in the Département de littérature comparée at the

Université de Montréal. An earlier version of this article was presented to the 2007

Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.


Over the last two decades we have witnessed dra-matic changes in the nature of information andcommunication technologies and their appli-cation in higher education. Within academia,

we see a growing imperative to integrate new and emerginginformation and communication technologies into allaspects of our workplace. There exists a large and diversecorpus of literature on the effects of technologies in the teach-ing and learning process, leadership and administration,globablization and internationalization, professional devel-opment, and policy. Noticeably absent in this body ofliterature are investigations into the effects of the technolog-ical communication innovations in the academic workplace.

In particular, web communication technologies are influ-encing the way academics are working. As most of us in the

academy are beginning to notice, many of our colleagues arenot in their on-campus offices. Not only are many academicsteaching their courses off-campus, but much of their researchand scholarly activities can also be conducted off campus. Forexample, data collection and library searches have given way toonline searches, and many different kinds of data can be col-lected using communication tools—and in many cases very costeffectively. The result is the creation of (intentionally, or by acci-dent) a distributed work environment.

At this point in time, we have little understanding of theeffects of a distributed work environment in institutions ofhigher education. Are we abandoning our colleagues incyberspace? Or is this trend resulting in the creation of virtualacademic communities? And if so, are these communitiesenhancing, replacing or damaging academic culture?

Distributed Workplaces and e-Academics:What’s happening?by Heather Kanuka and Terry Anderson

University of Alberta’s Heather Kanuka and AthabascaUniversity’s Terry Anderson investigate the challenges of creatingacademic workplaces and communities in cyberspace.


Depending on who we talk to, the answers seem to be yesand no.

A number of institutions have noticed this trend andbegun to offer teleworking options for their fulltime academ-ics. In Canada, Athabasca University decided to pilot ateleworking policy for its academics. The pilot ran from 2005to 2008. Like other universities in Canada and beyond, plan-ning for succession and retention is a high priority.Administrators of post secondary institutions are implement-ing creative efforts to keep senior faculty from moving intoearly retirement as well as to recruit promising new scholarsinto academia—rather than to risk their opting for more lucrative jobs in the private sector or being attracted to largeror more prestigious universities.

Teleworking—which offers the freedom to work when-ever and where ever—is being viewed as a promising option.Teleworking refers to the practice of employees working awayfrom the conventional office (e.g., at a home office, satellite

office or neighborhood work centre) and com-municating with the organization through

the use of telecommunication technolo-gies. Requirements for attendance byteleworkers at the employers’ premisesrange from “as needed,” to weekly,

monthly and, rarely, to “never.” Attendancefor teaching campus-based courses offers a

compelling rationale for faculty attendance,but more universities are offering courses at a dis-

tance, using a variety of communication technologies. Thereduction of compulsory attendance activity, coupled withtime and place shifting technologies used to support admin-istrative activities, reduces the need for academics to physicallycome to campus.

While relatively new to academia, the notion of tele-working is not new in the corporate sector. The effects havebeen studied, with well-documented benefits and drawbacks.This research shows that teleworking can, in many ways, be anattractive option for both the employer and the employee. Benefits cited in this literature include:

• flexibility in personal and family scheduling, especiallydual-career couples

• more positive views about family and personal life thanemployees working in on-site offices

• increased productivity and work quality• less distraction and fewer interruptions• an ability to work during the most productive part

of the day• time saved from commuting• an increase in perceived job satisfaction

Drawbacks cited in the literature are:• increase in turnover intentions • the lack of contact (e.g. being out of sight) limits

opportunities for informal socialization, promotionand organizational rewards

• loneliness and a sense of isolation from the organization

At first glance, the list of benefits clearly outweighs thedrawbacks. However, these drawbacks can easily translate intoserious workplace problems in academic environments whennot accommodated in some manner. For example, when uni-versities function with central, integrated units (and most do)and faculty members are distributed, the balance of powerbetween administration and individual faculty can becomeunhinged and top-heavy. Decisions on how the universityfunctions tend to move to those in the central, integrated unitslocated on-campus. This situation arises from the lack ofcontact between colleagues and a lack of identification withthe institution by those academics choosing to be teleworkers.Additionally, research has shown that as identification withan institution and commitment decreases so does the contri-bution to the institution and job satisfaction. The result iserosion of institutional loyalty and an upsurge in turnoverintentions. Ergo: it is questionable if teleworking policies areeffective at achieving one of its main goals—retention—whileat the same time resulting in the potential for unbalanced insti-tutional power structures. In addition to reduced institutionalattachment and identification, many employees in distributedwork environments experience feelings of isolation. Though,it needs to be noted, research has shown that this can be easilydecreased when there is regular, planned and regulatedcontact and collaboration amongst colleagues.

To determine if these same opportunities and challengeswere evolving at Athabasca University we conducted an insti-tutional survey (Kanuka, Heller, Jugdev & West, 2008).Perhaps not surprisingly, we found similar results. The data inthis study revealed that the academics choosing to be tele-workers did so for many of the same benefits cited above; thedata also showed that they experienced feelings of isolation, adisconnect with the institution and fewer opportunities tomake meaningful contributions to the institution throughcommittee work. Also consistent with prior literature, the dataindicated contact with colleagues through continuous learn-ing and research activities helped defray feelings of isolation.Other unresolved issues which tend to frustrate academicsopting to be a teleworkers revolve around additional expensesincurred when working from an off-campus office: desks,printers, travel to campus, internet connectivity, etc.

Additional comments also revealed that a possible solu-tion is the delivery of continuous learning activities viadigitally-based web-spaces. Using, for example, Web 2.0 com-munication tools, teleworkers can participate and/or accessinformation, attend functions and collaborate from theirhome office. The survey data also indicate there is a desire byteleworkers to attend face-to-face workshops, with the

The feeling of belonging to an

academic community is incubated by

face-to-face learning interactions.


assumption that time and travel to attend would be paid for bythe institution. Given that a university’s most valuable andexpensive resource is its academics, and a university’s future isdependent upon the success of its academics, providingfunding for time and travel may be a wise investment.

Analyzing the results of our study, we concluded that academics who choose to be teleworkers at AthabascaUniversity, and in particular new hires, want to be connectedwith like-minded colleagues in the development of innovativeand nurturing interactions that support excellence in instruc-tion, and research. They also want to contribute to thedirection and growth of the institution.

But we also discovered that if left unattended, academicsworking in a distributed work environment are likely to expe-rience a sense of isolation. Other research shows that the senseof isolation often progresses toward exasperation, disillu-sionment and eventual alienation. Educator and authorParker Palmer explains (in his seminal book The Courage toTeach, 1999) how collegial socialization is an essential aspectof continuous learning activities. Without collegial socializa-tion, a privatization of work evolves which “creates more thanindividual pain; it creates institutional incompetence as well.”He asserts, further, that the outcome of privatized teachingresults in performance that is more conservative, rarely stray-ing from what is “tried and true”—even when it does not work.Our institutional study reveals evidence of resistance to movefrom the “tried and true” and what Palmer refers to as the“silent consensus.”

On the upside, our survey data also revealed, consistentwith prior research, that institutional offerings for collegialand continuous learning activities could result in an increasein job satisfaction and work performance. Further, priorresearch has also confirmed that when continuous learningand involvement opportunities are offered, it can result inimproving relationships between teleworkers and the institu-tion. It would, therefore, seem reasonable to conclude theprovision of continuous learning activities facilitates a culturethat supports academic growth and development, while fos-

tering connectedness between and among colleaguesand the institution. While not a new concept, the

creation of these kinds of collaborative learningactivities is commonly referred to as learningcommunities or communities of practice.

For a variety of reasons, a “comingtogether”, face-to-face, in distributed work-

place environments is difficult—as is the case with Athabasca University. Working within these

constraints, we explored the notion of creating a “virtual”academic learning community as an alternative. Our initialefforts began with a new listserv and an invitation email forour colleagues to join us in a collegial discussion on issues ofimportance in teaching and learning at Athabasca University.These discussions were facilitated using Elluminate (a web-based, synchronous audio system), with planned sessionsonce a month. From the start, participation by AthabascaUniversity academics was uninspiring (5-10 participants,

including two moderators). After a few sessions, with dwin-dling participation numbers, we discontinued our efforts toto create a virtual learning community.

At this point in time, we had only explored the creationof a managedvirtual academic community whereby we createdand facilitated the virtual community toward our interests,and were consistent with our institution’s aims. However,

Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation is pleased to congratulate our 2008 Excellence in Education Award winners Chris Magwood of Fleming College and Dr. Ryan Plummer of Brock University.

To nominate an educator for the 2009 Excellence

in Education Awards, go to www. cmhc.ca

(keywords: Excellence in Education)

2008 CMHC E XCELLENCE IN

EDUC ATION AWARD WINNERS

Dr. Ryan PlummerBrock University

Chris MagwoodFleming College

despite our good intentions, we seemed to lack an informedunderstanding of the complexities of forming and support-ing a virtual learning environment for academics in a mannerthat is both effective and sustainable.

We decided to conduct another study exploring whetheracademic support and development units were successful at fostering communities of practice through communica-tion technologies, and if so, how. Of interest is how Internetdigital communication tools (e.g., Web 2.0) might be re-shaping possibilities for collaboration and the creation ofvirtual academic communities. One question we investigatedis whether a community can be constructed for a group ofpeople or whether it must emerge on its own.

The data from our second study revealed that we are notalone in our inability to sustain virtual academic learningcommunities—proving once again that it is easier to build anonline environment than it is to populate that space. The par-ticipants interviewed in this study stated that it was theface-to-face contact and meetings that led to developing andsustaining an academic community. Virtual environmentstended to be viewed as not having key mechanisms for initi-ating a learning community. The provision of physicallearning spaces and opportunity appears to be necessary forfostering a sense of community. In particular, the feeling ofbelonging to an academic community is incubated by face-to-face learning interactions.

The results of this study also indicate that academic com-munities are more likely to emerge with structured

learning or administration experiences thanwith the more emergent and ad hoc com-

munities that might arise through thespontaneous use of web technologies.Participants were cognisant of the knowl-edge, skills and effort required to cultivate

effective academic learning communities.Our findings suggest that it is a struggle to

nurture and sustain virtual academic learningcommunities. Much of the literature concurs, suggesting thatthis process is not easy and that strategies for communitysupport must be diverse, stimulating, and be perceived asadding value to academics’ busy lives.

As we were analysing these data, we noticed that oneapproach, used by all participants in our study, is to begin theprocess of creating virtual academic learning communitiesthrough face-to-face events. This brings academics together ini-tially, providing a place to connect with like-mindedcolleagues. Once connections are formed and established face-to-face (often through sustained activities, such ascohort-based certificate programs), virtual learning spacestend to be more successful and sustainable. Most successfulonline communities depend upon a range of tools beginningwith both real time and asynchronous communication usingtext, audio and video media—including of course the ubiqui-tous email list. Communities also need tools to support thecollaborative construction of documents, including versioningand robust permissions for access and editing. Finally, notifi-

cation and presence tools that providemembers with awareness of the presence andcontributions of their community help com-munity members stay connected with eachother. Many of us have noted (and some areshocked) at the time and effort millions of usersdevote to Facebook, MySpace and other social softwaremega sites, as well as the level of disclosure on these sites.However, academics seem less interested in expending limitedtime resources on purely social interaction. Thus, the commu-nity of practice must add value and not just consumetime—pleasurable as that might be for some. Most academicsare not early adopters of networked technologies and thus continuing efforts at support and exposure are usually key todeveloping effective virtual communities.

It was noted by our participants that community build-ing is a labour intensive approach that requires resources,such as a community coordinator to moderate and to keep thedialogue going. Moderators are key to introducing newissues, summarizing, tying topics together, and moving thediscussion to deeper levels. Effort, commitment and somecharisma are required in order to cultivate and sustain virtualacademic communities. A virtual learning community willnot form without a champion, a purpose, and easy to use, yetpowerful, tools.

The gap between the advantages of present communi-cation tools, such a Web 2.0, and the way academics are usingthem is a catalyst for research on sustainable virtual aca-demic communities. At present, we need a betterunderstanding of the theoretical and practical approachesrequired to develop effective virtual learning communities.Drawing on the results of our data, initiatives should con-sider offering several approaches: combine formal andnon-formal online learning programs; allow for both indi-vidual and collaborative activities; create online spaces thatare easy to use and navigate; and provide opportunity forspontaneous interactions that embed virtual communitieswithin the regular information space of the institution’s webpresence. Some virtual academic communities will likelyevolve through more on-campus, less virtual activities; somewill form resulting from a charismatic champion whomanages and moderates the environment; and some will beemergent and organic, self-created by academics. Each ofthese possibilities provides avenues for the creation ofvirtual academic communities. Whatever the form or struc-ture, with the increase in distributed workplaces, we need tocontinue to explore creative ways to build and sustain effec-tive virtual academic communities. AM

Heather Kanuka is a professor and academic director of the University Teaching Services

at the University of Alberta. Terry Anderson is a professor and Canada Research Chair at

Athabasca University

References:

References cited and the research methodology can be found in theweb-version of this article at www.academicmatters.ca



Humour Matters

Internationalization anda mob from Manitoba

Steve Penfold

BY NOW, I T SEEMS PRETT Y CLEARthat the staff at Academic Matters hateme. On the surface, they seem like a friendly enough bunch. They havebeen surprisingly patient with mysomewhat postmodern notion ofdeadlines and, at some point, theytook me out to lunch.

But over time, theirdeeper, more malevolentintentions have become alltoo clear. Exhibit A: thesuccession of topics – fromreligion through equity toenvironmentalism – aboutwhich they expect me to be funny. I realize these areimportant and interestingtopics, but can youimagine anything lessamusing than a fully-employed, middle-agedwhite guy waxing sarcasticabout equity? How aboutthe never-baptized son-of-a-Catholic crackingjokes about religion? I think it’sobvious that my comedic standardsare pretty low, but I don’t want mobsforming outside my office.

Exhibit B: imagine my shock and awe when they phoned toannounce “internationalization” asthe theme of the next issue. I’ll admitthat I experienced an initial flush ofenthusiasm. I mean, “international-ization” has got to be easy to makefunny, since it already sounds like apunch line. How many vice-presidentslaid end to end would it take to get to Davos? Why did the chicken crossthe border? That sort of thing. And it scores so deliciously high on the

Buzzwordiness Scale (BS) – it’s beinga concept impossible to oppose, like good health or personal ethics. “Good living will only prolong mysuffering,” my Uncle Ralph says, buteven he wouldn’t object to learningmore about the world.

Are we supposed to think that“national” is the parochial status quo from which internationalizationis going to save us? Here at theUniversity of Toronto we like to thinkour civilizing light is projected to the very darkest corners of Canada,perhaps even as far as Winnipeg. Butafter a lifetime of local commutes and global migrations, my Canadianhistory students know an astonishingamount about Markham (a suburb of Toronto) and Milan (not a suburbof Toronto), but almost nothing aboutManitoba. That sort of M-factor makesthem much more worldly than me. My border-crossing experiences have

been confined to childhood trips tovisit my Aunt Doll in Cincinnati, akind of cultural knowledge you won’tfind in many university MissionStatements. But it's over 2000 kilome-tres from Markham to Manitoba, so ifwe’re supposed to be internationaliz-ing our students to save them from thestatus quo of “national” parochialism,we’re at least a three-day drive fromthe status quo. At that rate, reachingeven it would take years of effort andbuckets of public money.

In the end, though, I can’t workup much energy for waxing sarcasticabout buzzwords. When I was in gradschool, breaking down the walls

between the universityand the local commu-nity was all the rage and,of course, the buzzwordsbuzzed: communityoutreach, publicknowledge, sharedauthority, and so on.Few of these lived up totheir transformativepromise, but so what?Even if my stint makingphotocopies at theBracebridge Museum ofAcute Aeronautic Failurewas not a utopian act ofdemocratic knowledgeproduction, it wasinfinitely preferable to

publishing my grad papers in Duh: The Journal of Obvious Research onObscure Topics.

So let the vice-presidents buzz.The worst that can happen is that Ilearn something about a place moreinteresting than Cincinnati. Besides, I have much bigger problems. A mobis gathering outside my office. Theyappear to be Manitobans, and I don’tthink they want to take me to lunch.

Steve Penfold is Academic Matters’ humour columnist.

He moonlights as an associate professor of history at

the University of Toronto. His most recent book is

The Donut: A Canadian History (University of Toronto

Press, 2008).


Editorial Matters

Going GlobalMark Rosenfeld

DURING THE PAST DECADE,cross-border (or offshore) initiativesof Canadian universities haveexpanded, accompanied by moreinternationalization of our campuses.Degree and diploma programs,branch campuses, and stand-aloneinstitutions with Canadian universityinvolvement have been established orplanned in countries around the globe.

Western’s Ivey School ofBusiness has a campus in Hong Kong.Carleton University’s Sprott School of Business offers programs in India,China, and Iran. The University ofCalgary has a nursing program inQatar. Ahram Canadian University is aprivate institution in Cairo establishedwith the cooperation of severalCanadian universities.

How extensive is this activity?While some surveys and data areavailable, and we know that three-quarters of Canadian universitiesprovide education and trainingoutside the country, there are nocomprehensive studies of theseinitiatives, particularly in comparisonto the United Kingdom and Australia,whose offshore university ventures are more extensive than here.

The lack of comprehensiveinformation about Canadian univer-sity offshore activity makes it difficultanswer questions such as: How wellregulated? What financial and qualitycontrol measures are there? What’sthe impact on the direction andmission of Canadian universities?

In her wide-ranging article in thisissue on trends in the international-ization of higher education, JaneKnight raises critical questions about

both the planned and unintendedconsequences of this activity. Sheponders the impact of these cross-border initiatives on the role, purpose,and values of higher education. Sheasks “how an increased emphasis onthe ‘buying and selling’ of educationacross borders will affect the natureand priority given to academic, socialand cultural rationales of non-profitinternational education activities.” DoWestern universities provide opportu-nities to promote cross-culturalunderstanding and “the hybridizationof culture”, or are indigenous culturesbeing Westernized under a new formof colonialism?

Canadian faculty are pivotal tothe internationalization enterprise.Faculty play a key role in the develop-ment of offshore courses. They teachin offshore campuses. They set qualitystandards for offshore programs. And they are ambassadors for theirinstitutions.

We know, however, very littleabout the experience of Canadianfaculty involved in offshore initiatives,but a few years ago the NationalTertiary Education Union conductedextensive research into the experienceof faculty teaching in offshoreAustralian university programs in theAsia-Pacific region. It is one of the few studies done on this subject, andits findings are sobering.

The study observed thatAustralian university policies andpractices governing staff involvementin offshore operations were eitherlargely unregulated, or very looselyregulated. Policies regarding, forexample, staff consultation, offshore

facilities for staff, intellectual propertyrights, and staff development andremuneration varied widely not onlybetween universities but also withinuniversity faculties and departments.

There was insufficient consulta-tion with faculty delivering offshorecourses, especially concerning theimpact of these courses on academicworkloads, the willingness of staff toparticipate in offshore programs, andthe preparation time and resourcesneeded to deliver them.

Quality concerns were high-lighted, such as inadequate teachingcredentials of staff employed by anoffshore partner of an Australianuniversity, pressures to pass students,and limited monitoring of students’work. The report noted that whileoffshore work was often presented as voluntary, there were pressures on faculty to take on offshore assign-ments that resulted in greaterworkloads. Other issues includedinsufficient opportunities for stafftraining and development; health and safety strains on staff required to travel frequently; and inadequatearrangements for covering thedomestic campus responsibilities ofstaff teaching offshore.

Canadian faculty’s involvementin education abroad should raisesimilar questions and concerns tothose identified in the Australianstudy. What protections exist foracademic freedom? At what pointdoes attention to cultural or politicalsensitivities undercut the academicintegrity of an offshore program andthe academic freedom of the instruc-tor? What role, if any, is there forcollegial governance? How is work-load regulated?

As Canadian universities expand their global reach, and theseissues become more pressing, facultyand faculty representatives will haveto address them.

Mark Rosenfeld is editor-in-chief of Academic Matters

and associate executive director of OCUFA

OCUFA CONFERENCE 2009JANUARY 23-24, 2009•SUTTON PLACE HOTEL•TORONTO, ONTARIO

Jamil Salmi, Deputy Director, Education Department, World Bank, Washington, DC Bjorn Stensaker, NIFU Studies in Innovation, Research and Education, Norway Ellen Hazelkorn, Director, Higher Education Policy Research Unit (HEPRU), Dublin Institute of Technology, Ireland Glen Jones, Ontario Research Chair in Postsecondary Education Policy and Measurement, OISE/University of Toronto Theresa Shanahan, Faculty of Education, York University Amy Metcalfe, Department of Educational Studies, University of British Columbia Tony Keller, Managing Editor, Maclean's magazine; Alex Usher, Vice-President, Educational Policy Institute Ken Steele, Senior Vice-President, Academica Group

Accounting orAccountability

in Higher Education

For more information, including registration, please go to www.ocufa.on.ca

S P E A K E R S I N C L U D E

WELCOME TO THE INTERDISCIPLINARY UNIVERSITY. At York, we tackle

real-world issues by bringing together researchers, graduate students and partners

from different disciplines. Currently, environmental scientists, lawyers and educators

at York are researching the application of sustainability principles and practices

throughout society. This commitment will leave Canada in a better position to deal

with environmental challenges as they arise in the future. It is this collaborative

approach to creating new knowledge that makes York a leading research

innovator. To learn more about the interdisciplinary university, visit YORKU.CA

QUESTION EVERY ANGLE.

STUDY EVERY ANGLE.

RESEARCH EVERY ANGLE.

. . . . AN ENGINEER SEES P=1⁄2pπR2v3

. . . . AN ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENTIST SEES NEAR-ZERO EMISSIONS

. . . . A LITERATURE STUDENT SEES DON QUIXOTE

AcademicMatters€™08.pdf · the Global University An OCUFA Publication Oct-Nov 2008 ... 19...

Documents

Transcript of AcademicMatters€™08.pdf · the Global University An OCUFA Publication Oct-Nov 2008 ... 19...