Article:”Minerva Takes Flesh: Pentagon and Science Foundation Sign Social-Science Deal”

More news about the Minerva project. I mentioned in a previous post my deep skepticism on this direct involvement of the DOD in sponsoring social science research. This is related with the ethical problematic of instrumentalizating social research to follow military purposes. In a recent article at the Chronicle of Higher Education News Blog it is mention a essay which points out to one of the main criticisms on the Minerva initiative. In this essay , “David H. Price, an associate professor of anthropology and sociology at St. Martin’s University, warned that military-financed social science will crowd out other forms of academic inquiry”. I still believe that the participation of the NSF may not preclude some the inherent problems of this type of initiatives. For instances, Minerva final objectives may not be different from those found  in the 1960’s DOD project: Camelot.  Camelot was seen  as a component of a larger behavioral science project of social engineering whose contributions had very narrow instrumental purpose, oriented by a ‘conservative’ agenda of research,  of  finding effective instruments and knowledge to operationalize a notion of ‘order’ (e.g. anti-insurgency, etc) . The adverse reaction against Camelot in Latin America ended in a backlash against US scholars doing field research in Latin American countries.

From Chronicle of Higher Education News Blog, June 30, 2008 by David Glenn”

In a memorandum of understanding that was signed today, the Department of Defense and the National Science Foundation have agreed to work cooperatively to support social-science research on topics of interest to the Pentagon.

As widely expected, the NSF has agreed to help review proposals submitted to the Pentagon’s Minerva Research Initiative, a fledgling program that will offer grants to university-based scholars to study the Chinese military, the records of Saddam Hussein’s regime, and other specific topics.

The two agencies will soon — possibly within a week — release a joint request for Minerva-related proposals. Those proposals will be judged by the NSF’s typical merit-review panels, though the Pentagon has the right to nominate experts to serve on those panels. (The Pentagon is also accepting Minerva proposals through a separate pathway known as a broad agency announcement. Proposals that are submitted via this second track will reviewed through the Defense Department’s usual processes, not by NSF panels.)

But Monday’s agreement is broader than Minerva: It also creates a mechanism through which the Department of Defense can help to finance other national-security-related proposals submitted to the NSF. In such cases, scholars will have the option to decline the Pentagon’s money. (read full here)

The Pentagon as already started to invite universities to apply for grants of research for the Minerva initiative.

 

Article:”Schools of thought: teach children philosophy, experts urge” (The Guardian)

An interesting article at the Guardian arguing for teaching of philosophy as a learning practice in order to develop critical thinking skills in school. Anthea Lipsett mentions the book Philosophy in Schools, edited by Dr Michael Hand of the Institute of Education and Dr Carrie Winstanley of Roehampton University. The article puts forward several arguments mentioned in this book for including philosophy in the school curriculum.

FromThe Guardian, by Anthea Lipsett, July 2 2008:

Children of all ages should study philosophy in school to develop their critical thinking skills, education experts said today.

Academics suggest that, rather than start off with Socrates, teachers use common classroom disputes to help children learn about abstract philosophical principles such as fairness, morality and punishment. They give the example of apportioning blame for spilling paint (read here)

 

Report: ‘The Bologna process and the UK’s international student market’ (HEPI, May 2008)

The Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) as recently publish a report analyzing the impact of the bologna process ‘for the future of the UK as a destination for international students’. “The Bologna process and the UK’s international student market” indicates that ‘UK has been an active and influential participant in
European higher education reform’. A recent article at the Guardian, “UK universities at risk of losing foreign students“, offers an overview of the report an points out that the paper warns that UK could lose out lucrative international students as a result of the Bologna process. In short, “the Bologna process means that other European countries are providing the bachelors then masters degree structure that was unique to the UK” thus, this is resulting in an increasingly competitive market in a context that erodes some of the competitive advantages that UK universities had.

Links:

Report: “The Bologna process and the UK’s international student market” (HEPI), May 2008

Article: Lipsett, Anthea (May 22, 2008). “UK universities at risk of losing foreign students” The Guardian.

 

The ‘Minerva’ Project: The Military Academic Complex in the US?

New concerns on the Pentagon initiative “the Minerva consortium” were raised recently by the American Anthropological Association.  Minerva is a DOD initiative that seeks to “involve universities in the global war on terror” (Wired news) .The anxiety of scholars about the use of social science research in unethical manner with the purpose of enforce military operations is justify and related with a history of past violations (e.g. The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment,Human Radiation Experiments, etc) that led to the establishment of scholarly ethics codes of human research . This is a worrisome development that is generating heated debates. An overview of the Minerva initiative in a recent article at the Insider Higher Education address the responses to a recent letter by the president of the American Anthropological Research Association to the Bush administration and the Congress. The Chronicle of Higher Ed. News Blog indicate that in this letter, the association’s president, Setha M. Low, writes that,

“it is of paramount importance for anthropologists to study the roots of terrorism and other forms of violence.” But Ms. Low, who is a professor of environmental psychology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, argues that it would be better for such research to be financed by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and the National Endowment for the Humanities because, she says, those agencies are more familiar with anthropology and have established structures for peer review.

This however is not addressing the crucial questions that seem to linger behind the debate: what will be the purpose of social research funded by the Military in the current context? is this about the building of a ‘better public policy’ of conquest? will social research be use to harm the subjects of research?. Those are critical questions that cannot be avoided. Again, it is important to remember that there is a past and current history of governments using professional expertise to justify and/or support human rights abuses (e.g. torture and the medical profession). In a similar manner in a critical posting at the Open Anthropology blog is asked the following question:

Are American anthropologists being called upon to cure the pathologies of their own society, to reduce the toxic glorification of war and the malignant sanctification of brutes in uniform, or to provide practical advice on how to better control subject populations?

Finally, I wonder , following Sharon Weinberger posting at Wired news : “will Minerva go the way of theVietnam-era Project Camelot?”

 

Article: Maths teacher shortage ‘will get worse’

This article refers to a wider trend affecting not only the UK but most countries around the world. The shortage of skilled labour force in certain strategies areas, related to the quality provision of health and education, such as it is the case of teachers in math and sciences.

From the Guardian, form Anthea Lipsett ,May 7, 2008:

“the shortage of qualified maths teachers in schools in England and Wales is set to get worse, according to new research.

Figures produced by Education Data Surveys today reveal that only 2,000 maths teachers are likely to be trained this year, with even fewer next year, meaning there will not be enough trainees to fill all the vacancies advertised by schools.

An analysis of job advertisements for main scale maths teachers placed by secondary schools since the start of 2008 showed some 1,650 adverts by state schools across England and Wales.

With three months left for schools to advertise teaching posts before the end of the school year, the number of adverts is around 75% of total trainee numbers.

But once the needs of the private sector, those who drop out of training courses, and those who decide not to enter teaching are factored in to the equation, recorded vacancies for the first four months of 2008 exceed the likely number of trainees available.

Prof John Howson, who conducted the analysis, said: “Once again the government’s failure to recruit enough trainee maths teachers means that some schools will be short of properly qualified maths teachers.

“Parents should ask what the government is doing about this issue. All the focus on so-called poor teachers must not disguise the fact that the government has continually failed to provide enough teachers.

“What is even more alarming is that recruitment to training courses for 2008 is falling behind the levels seen last year and is well below the record highs recorded in 2006.”

The government must ensure that every school has its fair share of qualified maths teachers, regardless of whether it has to introduce rationing or use incentives, he added.”

 

Article: COLOMBIA: Violent Society, Violent Schools

From IPS News by Helda Martinez, April 7:

BOGOTA, Apr 7 (IPS) - In a survey carried out in 807 public and private primary and secondary schools across the social spectrum in the Colombian capital, 56 percent of students said they had been robbed within the school premises.

The study also found that 2,583 students had been intimidated or threatened with firearms, while 32 percent of the respondents said they had been the victims of physical bullying, being pinched, slapped, punched or shoved by fellow students. In addition, nine percent had been threatened with a beating, and three out of 10 admitted that they had engaged in vandalism in their schools.

The questionnaire was drawn up by the National Statistics Department in conjunction with the private University of Los Andes, which carried out the survey among students ranging in age from eight to 22 in March and April 2006 at the request of the Bogotá city government. However, the results were not made public until two weeks ago.

“This is a very serious situation, which reflects incidents of sexual violence, vandalism and verbal violence that society accepts and in many cases admires,” town councillor Gilma Jiménez told IPS.

 

Articles: “New coverage of Western universities in the Middle East and South Korea and a list of some foreing universities with branches in Gulf countries

In my perspective, yes the creation of foreign universities branches in the Gulf region seems to be like a modern Klondike. But, following the analogy not everybody got rich during the gold rush.

By globalhighered on US universities

The Chronicle of Higher Education’s forthcoming 28 March issue has another profile of globally-oriented higher ed development initiatives in the Middle East. The relevant (subscription required) entries are:

• ‘An Academic Building Boom Transforms the Persian Gulf: Western universities find opportunities as 3 Arab emirates strive to outdo one another’ by Zvika Krieger
• ‘Pouring Money Into Culture and Education’ by Zvika Krieger
• ‘How the Deal Was Done: Michigan State in Dubai’ by Karin Fischer

One week earlier South Korea received similar thematic attention via:

• ‘South Korea Seeks a New Role as a Higher-Education Hub’ by David McNeill
• ‘American Colleges See Potential in Korean Partnerships’ by Karin Fischer

 

Article: “Minds on Fire: Open Education, the Long Tail, and Learning 2.0″

This article written by John Seely Brown and Richard P. Adler appeared in the last issue of Educause (January/February 2008).  The authors offer an extensive presentation of  online education resources , while comparing different approaches to learning in relation with social learning online, an the possibility of a new form of learning: Learning 2.0. The article concludes that:

The building blocks provided by the OER movement, along with e-Science and e-Humanities and the resources of the Web 2.0, are creating the conditions for the emergence of new kinds of open participatory learning ecosystems²³ that will support active, passion-based learning: Learning 2.0. This new form of learning begins with the knowledge and practices acquired in school but is equally suited for continuous, lifelong learning that extends beyond formal schooling.

From Educause:

The world has become increasingly “flat,” as Tom Friedman has shown. Thanks to massive improvements in communications and transportation, virtually any place on earth can be connected to markets anywhere else on earth and can become globally competitive.¹ But at the same time that the world has become flatter, it has also become “spikier”: the places that are globally competitive are those that have robust local ecosystems of resources supporting innovation and productiveness.² A key part of any such ecosystem is a well-educated workforce with the requisite competitive skills. And in a rapidly changing world, these ecosystems must not only supply this workforce but also provide support for continuous learning and for the ongoing creation of new ideas and skills.

If access to higher education is a necessary element in expanding economic prosperity and improving the quality of life, then we need to address the problem of the growing global demand for education, as identified by Sir John Daniel.³ Compounding this challenge of demand from college-age students is the fact that the world is changing at an ever-faster pace. Few of us today will have a fixed, single career; instead, we are likely to follow a trajectory that encompasses multiple careers. As we move from career to career, much of what we will need to know will not be what we learned in school decades earlier. We are entering a world in which we all will have to acquire new knowledge and skills on an almost continuous basis.

It is unlikely that sufficient resources will be available to build enough new campuses to meet the growing global demand for higher education—at least not the sort of campuses that we have traditionally built for colleges and universities. Nor is it likely that the current methods of teaching and learning will suffice to prepare students for the lives that they will lead in the twenty-first century.

Read full here: Minds on Fire: Open Education, the Long Tail, and Learning 2.0

 

News: 3 Big Banks Leave Government-Backed Student-Loan Program (USA)

This is a good question: if private lenders leave government-backed student -loan programs what kind of student borrowers will become more affected?

From the Inside Higher Ed:

The phrases “credit crunch” and “student loans” are blaring with increasing frequency from newspaper headlines and TV news broadcasts. With growing numbers of banks and other loan providers announcing layoffs or plans to leave or limit participation in the student loan market, it is clear that the general problems in the financial markets have created a credit crunch crisis for student loan providers. But is there a loan crisis for student borrowers themselves?

That depends in large part on what kind of loans — and what kind of students — you’re talking about. (read A Student Loan Credit Crunch — But for Whom? (Inside Higher Ed) )

From the Chronicle of Higher Education News Blog:

Washington — Three more large student-loan providers are pulling out of the government-subsidized loan program.

The difference this time is that all three of them are banks.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that HSBC Bank USA, the M&T Bank Corporation, and the TCF Financial Corporation have all decided to stop offering federally guaranteed student loans following last year’s decision by Congress to cut lender subsidies by more than $20-billion over five years.

All three are among the program’s 50 largest lenders, together providing more than $560-million of the $119-billion in federally backed loans issued in the 2006 federal fiscal year, the Journal reported.

Several other lenders already have announced they are withdrawing from or reducing their participation in the federal loan program, prompting expressions of concern from colleges and some in Congress. Yet Education Secretary Margaret Spellings has given repeated assurances that hundreds of other lenders remain available to provide student-loan money.

The difference this time, however, is that the three lenders withdrawing from the program are all banks. Non bank lenders had been regarded as especially vulnerable to the combination of the subsidy cuts and the overall crisis in lending attributed to rising rates of mortgage defaults. Banks had been considered less vulnerable because they have their own customer deposits to draw upon as sources of cash.

Initial reaction appears to be falling along the lines already established, with the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators calling the banks’ departures a “major concern,” and an Education Department official telling the Journal that the three banks appeared to have been major sources of lending at very few colleges. —Paul Basken

 

News: Venezuelan Government Eliminates Universities’ Entrance Examinations

 From The  Chronicles of Higher Education News Blog, March 7, 2008, by Mike Ceaser:

Bogotá, Colombia — Venezuelan public universities’ individual entrance examinations will be eliminated, the government’s National University Council decided on Thursday night against the wishes of many at the nation’s leading colleges.

University officials and student leaders have said that eliminating the tests will lower academic quality and admit far more students than the universities can handle. For their part, government officials argue that the universities’ entrance exams discriminate against lower-income students, who come from public high schools and generally receive poorer educations than wealthier students who attend private high schools.

As a result, most students at the best public universities, which charge no tuition, come from the nation’s small middle and upper classes. Under the new system, government officials have said, students will be admitted based on their standing in their high-school classes.

In the past, most students at the nation’s eight major traditional universities have been admitted under the individual entrance exams, and smaller numbers have been admitted under a national exam.

The policy change has implications for the universities’ political leanings. The nation’s major public universities have been bastions of opposition to the socialist policies of President Hugo Chávez. However, most lower-income Venezuelans back the president. Last year student organizations led opposition to the government’s rescinding of transmission rights for a television station as well as to constitutional amendments that would have greatly expanded Mr. Chávez’s powers.

Jorge González, a spokesman for the National University Council, said details of the new policy had not yet been worked out. He said that a commission of government and university leaders would make final recommendations in two months.

Roderick Navarro, who heads a student committee on high-school education at Venezuelan Central University, in Caracas, the nation’s largest university, said the policy change violated the universities’ autonomy. “We are opposed to policies’ being imposed by the government,” he said. “The universities must set their own policies.”