A global education

Higher education has become competitive on a global level, and this university is one of many stepping up its game to remain a key player.

Ben Wildavsky, senior scholar in research and policy at the Kauffman Foundation, held a talk at the School of Public Policy yesterday on how global universities are reshaping the world's higher education system.

More than a dozen attended the forum, which mainly focused on the mobility of students and faculty to and from foreign countries, the emergence of global college rankings and the race to create world-class universities.

This university ranked 38th of 500 international institutions this year in the Academic Rating of World Universities by Shanghai Ranking Consultancy and has hovered around that number since 2006, up from its 2003 ranking of 75.

"[Rankings] have the potential to be useful to schools, students, policy members, et cetera, and can spur competition and ultimately help the university improve. It provides a kind of academic currency," Wildavsky said. "My impression is the University of Maryland is very much engaged in the global academic marketplace."

While in India, Wildavsky said he spoke with this university's chair of the department of computer science, Larry Davis, who was visiting a college in the country to recruit international graduate students.

"All science departments rely heavily on students overseas, so it's not unusual for faculty when traveling to go to universities and meet potential students," Davis said. "Maryland is trying to establish a community with people around the world."

Public policy professor Robert Nelson, the forum's co-director, said that over the past 15 years he has taught at this university, he has traveled all around the world.

Other countries have recently been worried about the "brain drain," said Wildavsk, referring to an expanding phenomenon wherein students leave their countries and move to the West for schooling, causing that nation to lose its best minds.

"It's become more of a brain circulation or brain exchange," Wildavsky said. "China and India are sending lots of students to the West, and there's lots of opportunity to go back home. There's not the old sort of East-to-West pattern."

Public policy graduate student Yu Zhang said she is here to study but will be returning to her home in China as a sea turtle might, referring to a comment Wildavsky made about foreign students returning to their home, just as a sea turtle returns to its beach of birth.

"Maryland does a good job globally — it focuses on lots of diverse values, which is why I came here. Everyone here is very friendly to international students," she said.

In the coming years, Wildavsky said he hopes countries can put aside their differences for a better world and a brighter hope for higher education.

"We need more well-trained minds, regardless of nationality," he said. "It's not a matter of vacuuming up knowledge all for our own, it's about spreading it."

romas@umdbk.com