Higher Education Study Tour to the US and Canada, visiting San Francisco Bay area, Seattle, Vancouver and Victoria, 6-15 August 2008
Designed for university executives/managers, governing body members, and university commercialisation company executives, this program will focus particularly on:
• Research commercialisation and industry partnerships
• Leadership, governance and strategic direction setting
• Funding issues and private higher education
• Graduate studies and research management
• Building new ‘on-campus’ integrated urban communities
Scheduled immediately before the International Meeting of University Administrators (IMUA) to be held in Vancouver from 17-21 August 2008.
If you would like to participate in this Study Tour, please download and complete the Registration Form and send to CHEMP at: email: chemp@une.edu.au, fax: +61 2 6773 3363 or post to Grant Harman, CHEMP, School of Business, Economics and Public Policy, University of New England, Armidale, NSW, 2351, Australia. For more general information about the International Study Program, previous tours or participant comments please follow this link.
Contents
CHEMP and Study Tours
Organised by the UNE Centre for Higher Education Management and Policy (CHEMP) in conjunction with New England Travel (188 Beardy Street, Armidale, NSW, 2351, Australia), the study tour will be led by Professor Grant Harman (former UNE Pro Vice-Chancellor Research) and Professor Kay Harman (UNE Dean of Graduate Studies) both of whom are members of CHEMP. Since 1999, CHEMP has run a number of highly successful study programs to the United States, England, Scotland, Ireland and the Netherlands, with participants from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Hong Kong, Canada and the Netherlands.
Program Details
Program Aims
Through institutional visits, seminars and discussions, the program seeks to assist participants:
• Appreciate how U.S. and Canadian universities approach research commercialisation and the different organisational strategies used in industry partnerships.
• Understand the role of leadership and governance in successful universities.
• Gain insights into funding and tuition fee trends and the important role played by private higher education, including for-profit institutions.
• Understand how major universities organise graduate education and manage research activities.
• Be aware of new developments in building ‘on-campus’ urban communities.
Internationally U.S. higher education is a key pacesetter. Of the 100 leading universities identified in 2007 by Shanghai Jiaotong University, 53 are American and of these 10 are in California, while the University of Washington in Seattle is ranked in 20th place on the Shanghai Jiaotong list.
Being wealthy and the largest American state in terms of population, it is not surprising that California has a particularly strong higher education system, with impressive examples of high quality research and close partnerships between research universities and industry. Public higher education consists of the 11 campus University of California, the 22 campus California State University and College system, and well over 100 community colleges, while private higher education includes strong research universities such as Stanford and Caltech and a wide variety of church and non-religious private universities and colleges.
While having a smaller population than California, the state of the Washington has a strong higher education system, made up of public and private sectors. In the public sector there are six universities and 34 community and technical colleges while the private sector is made up of 34 universities and colleges. The leading public institution is the University of Washington (founded 1861) with an enrolment of over 40,000 students.
A key feature of Canadian higher education is that the provinces and territories are responsible for all levels of education including universities. The province of British Columbia has a well-developed public university and college system made up of six universities, three university colleges and 16 institutes and community colleges. There are also a variety of private institutions including Trinity Western University. The largest institution is the University of British Columbia with over 45,000 students, which was ranked 36th by the Shanghai Jiaotong University listing in 2007.
Program Emphases
Research commercialisation and industry partnerships
Over the past three decades, North American universities have put increasing emphasis on industry partnerships, patents, licensing and start-ups. According to 2006 AUTM survey results, in the U.S. 189 universities reported total R&D expenditure of US$45billion, with US$1.385 billion being generated in licence income. The leading universities in terms of annual licence income for 2004 in rank order were: the University of California system (US$74.3m), University of Wisconsin at Madison (US$47.7m), and Stanford University (US$47.3m).
Leadership, governance and strategic direction setting
Successful universities need highly competent leaders, able to develop strategic directions and communicate this effectively to staff, students and other stakeholders. Successful universities also have governance arrangements that provide partnerships between governing bodies and senior management. Private universities tend to take considerable care in recruiting new governing body members while presidents need both impressive management skills and tap outside sources of support.
Funding issues and private higher education
Both American and Canadian universities have seen substantial increases in tuition fee levels but increased variations between universities and courses. America has a long tradition of private higher education that includes leading research universities such as Harvard, Stanford and Princeton and private liberal arts colleges. The new trend is ‘for-profit’ universities, with the most notable example being the University of Phoenix, with 200,000 adult students and numerous campuses throughout the U.S.
Graduate education and research management
American higher education leadership is being challenged by substantial investment in research universities by Japan, China and Korea and by European course structure and QA innovations with the Bologna Process. This is prompting American institutions to take initiatives to safeguard their competitive advantage. Leading U.S. universities have strong graduate programs; UCLA, for example, has 13,000 postgraduate students and 1,000 post-docs.
Building new ‘on-campus’ urban communities
Internationally, a new trend is for campuses with spare land to develop integrated on-campus urban communities accommodating both student and non-student residential populations combined with shops and offices. An interesting example is Simon Fraser University that is developing UniverCity on its striking Burnaby Mountain campus. In return for the transfer of 332 hectares to create an urban conservation area, the City of Burnaby gave approval to the University to build a new on-campus urban community.
Institutional Visits Will Include:
Stanford University
Stanford University is a leading U.S. private university with strengths in research and commercialistaion generating about US$50 million annually in licence income. We have an appointment to attend a presentation on 8 August by the Director of the Office of Technology Licensing, Katharine Ku.
University of San Francisco
Founded in 1855, the University of San Francisco is committed to being an internationally recognized as a premier Jesuit Catholic, urban university with a global perspective that educates leaders who will fashion a more humane and just world. Currently, it is in the midst of a $175 million capital campaign.
Simon Fraser University
Named after explorer Simon Fraser, SFU opened on September 9, 1965. Taking only 30 months to grow from the idea stage into an almost-completed campus with 2,500 students, it was dubbed the “Instant University”. Over 40 years later SFU has over 25,000 students and 90,000 alumni.
Proposed Schedule
Wednesday 6 August: Briefing meeting 6.00pm in San Francisco
Thursday 7 August: University of California central administration; University of California Berkeley
Friday 8 August: Stanford University
Monday 11 August: University of Washington
Tuesday 12 August: Seattle University; bus travel to Vancouver taking about 4 hours
Wednesday 13 August: University of British Columbia
Thursday 14 August: University of Victoria and British Columbia Department of Advanced Education
Friday 15 August: Simon Fraser University; Commonwealth of Learning
The final program will depend on availability of key personnel and will take account of participant interests.
Our plan is to stay 6 to 9 August in San Francisco, 10 and 11 August in Seattle, and 12 to 14 August in Vancouver, although participants may make their own plans for the weekend of 9-10 August. Registration can be cancelled up to 30 June, with a full refund. In the event of cancellation of the program owing to a major ‘external events’ such as major dislocation of airline schedules, registration fees but not other expenses may be refunded. The study program will proceed only if minimum numbers of registrations are achieved.
Program Costs and Organisation
The program fee is AUD$1,250. Detailed information on accommodation and internal travel arrangements will be provided on registration. We plan to stay at well-located hotels close public transport, that give good value and hopefully provide internet access. Participants, however, may stay at any hotels within close proximity of recommended hotels. Arrangements will be made for the group to meet each morning for visits, while each evening participants wishing to have drinks or dinner together will meet at agreed locations. Hotels being considered are as follows with approximate prices shown:
San Francisco: Best Western Americana (121 7th Street) (AUD$162 per room), Holiday Inn Civic Center (20 8th Street)(AUD$179 per room), or Hotel Britton (112 7th Street) (AUD$158 per room). All three are closely located.
Seattle: University Inn (4140 Roosevelt Way NE)(US$135-150 per room plus tax).
Vancouver: Sandman Hotel (180 Georgia Street West) (AUS$152 per room).
In addition to the registration fee and accommodation, other costs for participants include:
• return airfares to North America, and air travel from San Francisco to Seattle;
• bus travel from Seattle to Vancouver (CAN$38.00, or about AUD$42.00) and return bus and ferry travel from Vancouver to Victoria (provincial capital) on Vancouver Island (CAN$75.00 or about AUD$83.00);
• local travel on buses, BART in San Francisco, Caltrain to Stanford and occasional shared taxis; and
• meals and personal expenditure.
Participants may book airline travel through New England Travel, or may use their own travel agents. Accommodation can be booked via travel agents or the internet. Partners/spouses are welcome to join the tour either as full tour participants paying the program fee, or as accompanying persons with no registration fee. Participants are advised to take out travel and health insurance.
Health and travel insurance cover is strongly recommended as only University of New England personnel participating in the study tour are covered under the University's current travel insurance policy and even then they must have an A8 completed confirming that they are on official University business. However, if your trip has official support from your institution, you may be covered by your institution's insurance policy. We recommend that in such cases you check to ensure that you have appropriate health and travel insurance cover, since costs in some overseas countries in the case of illness or an accident can be very high.
Further information about this study program is available from Professor Grant Harman (Tel: +61 2 (02) 67 733217, Fax: + 61 2 (02) 67 733363, email: gharman@une.edu.au).
Registration
Please download and complete the Registration Form and send to CHEMP at:
email: chemp@une.edu.au
fax: +61 2 6773 3363 or
post to Grant Harman, CHEMP, School of Business, Economics and Public Policy, University of New England, Armidale, NSW, 2351, Australia