Ambasadorul Republicii Coreea în România, la Universitatea „Cuza” Iași
Excelența Sa Kim Yong Ho, ambasadorul Republicii Coreea în România, la Iași. Acesta a efectuat o vizită oficială și la Universitatea „Cuza” din Iași. Delegația diplomatică a participat la o întâlnire cu prof. univ. dr. Tudorel Toader – rectorul de la „Cuza”. Au mai participat prof. univ. dr. Henri Luchian, prorector și lect. univ. dr. Oana Cogeanu, de la Facultatea de Litere. „În cadrul întâlnirii s-a evidențiat buna colaborare dintre Universitatea «Cuza» și universitățile din Coreea. Acesta este cel mai longeviv acord inter-instituțional. Este vorba de cel cu Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, încheiat în anul 1990”, a precizat rectorul Toader.
Pe parcursul ultimilor zece ani, „Cuza” și-a intensificat cooperarea academică. E vorba de cele cu instituții de învățământ superior de prestigiu din Coreea. Totul în cadrul acordurilor inter-instituționale bilaterale. În acestea s-au realizat schimburi de studenți și profesori. S-au promovat și s-a extins colaborarea științifică. În intervalul 2010-2019 s-au derulat 25 de vizite la instituții de învățământ superior din Coreea. Studenții, cadrele didactice și cercetătorii au derulat stagii de studiu. Ele au cuprins și predare, formare și cercetare/documentare. Au participat la diferite evenimente științifice. Ele au fost organizate în instituții de învățământ din Coreea
Publicație : Bună Ziua Iași
Ilan Laufer promovează antreprenoriatul studențesc la UAIC
Marți, 22 octombrie 2019, Ilan Laufer, fost Ministru pentru Mediul de Afaceri, Comerț și Antreprenoriat, a avut o întrevedere oficială cu rectorul Universității „Alexandru Ioan Cuza” din Iași, prof. univ. dr. Tudorel Toader. În cadrul întâlnirii s-au discutat aspecte legate de încurajarea competențelor antreprenoriale în rândul studenților. Ilan Laufer a prezentat oportunitățile pe care le oferă programul Smart Start USA pentru tinerii antreprenori, în timp ce rectorul UAIC a menționat proiectele derulate prin Societatea Antreprenorială Studențească din cadrul UAIC și a reafirmat preocuparea Universității pentru stimularea și valorificarea spiritului antreprenorial în rândul studenților.
Tot marți, 22 octombrie, la ora 16, Ilan Laufer va susține o conferință de prezentare a programului Smart Start USA în sala B417 din cadrul Facultății de Economie și Administrarea Afacerilor. Mai multe informații despre proiect pot fi consultate aici.
Publicație : Bună Ziua Iași
It’s not just students who are to blame for noisy neighbourhoods in Bristol
We are a scapegoat for rapid expansion and estate agents’ greed. It’s time for students and local residents to work together
“Antisocial behaviour.” “Parties of the worst extremes.” “A continuous festival of noise.” These are just a handful of the descriptions used to characterise neighbourhoods near Bristol University. And who’s being blamed for the change? Students.
As a student at the university, I recently moved to one of these areas, Redland. Immediately we found ourselves in the middle of a familiar story of finger-pointing between students and local residents. I now realise that this town vs gown blame culture unfairly targets students, who are convenient scapegoats for understandably frustrated voices.
We are considered the main reason for the transformation of residential areas into lively student hubs of antisocial behaviour. But other factors need to be recognised too, such as universities’ rapid expansion and the resultant housing price hikes.
At Bristol, student numbers have increased by 17% in the last five years, which is unsurprising considering it is one of the UK’s most popular university choices. As well as promising academic success, the city was celebrated as being the best place to live in Britain in 2017. From the majestic suspension bridge in Clifton to the graffiti masterpieces of Stokes Croft, its diverse culture is undeniably attractive.
This popularity is something to be celebrated, but it has also sent rent prices throughout the city rocketing. The university is struggling to cope with demand: this year students have been housed across the border in Newport, with others in Somerset – a 40-minute drive from their studies.
Once students enter their second year and seek private housing, they are strongly guided by estate agents. We are directed, en masse, into the same affordable properties and neighbourhoods that our predecessors occupied, and so the community grows.
This shift in the residential demographic is highly sensitive. Students do appreciate this, a fact conveniently misrepresented by the local voices quoted in newspapers. Take my example: last week I hosted welcome drinks for new members of the university sports club before leaving at 9.30pm to relocate to the city centre. I awoke to find a picture of members leaving my house in multiple news articles online, claiming that students “pre-load” on booze before leaving for clubs at midnight. In my case it was untrue, but it’s also the reality that our maintenance loans typically don’t stretch far enough to cover the price of alcohol in pubs and bars.
This slew of accusations will get us nowhere. It only poisons the atmosphere between residents and students rather than helping us find compromise. There’s even vindictive talk of some residents clubbing together to plan a party during exam season as revenge. While some students may be inconsiderate, others want to build better relations with neighbours and integrate into the community. Many local residents want the same thing, but in extreme cases our efforts are met with threats of petty parties, constant police reports and pictures of us in critical articles. It seems the stereotype of students as entitled and rowdy is decided long before anyone actually meets us, despite this image only accurately describing a minority.
Instead of deciding which student house to point the finger at each night, should we not be going to the universities and council for a solution? Should they not be taking responsibility for the areas that students are encouraged to live in?
There is no obvious solution to these questions. However, we need to focus our attention towards minimising this conflict. It’s time to urge universities and the council to provide affordable housing in other areas, rather than punishing all students for the behaviour of a few.
Publicație : The Guardian
Cambridge isn’t the only university to fail at handling sexual misconduct complaints
The Trinity Hall harassment row is just another example of how unfit for purpose universities’ complaints processes are
Last weekend saw calls for a reform of the University of Cambridge’s collegiate system after one college, Trinity Hall, readmitted an (emeritus) fellow accused of multiple instances of sexual harassment, only two years after stating that he “will not be present in college at any time in the future”. It must have felt like a gross betrayal to the students.
This looks like a u-turn, given that the university promotes itself as a leader in tackling campus sexual misconduct through its Breaking the silence campaign. What was its response? Nothing about social responsibility or “zero tolerance”, but rather that “the colleges are all semi-autonomous” and that “the central university is not involved”.
The real question, though, was not why the decision was left to Trinity Hall, but how any institution can have such a haphazard system for handling sexual harassment complaints. Trinity Hall held a formal investigation that apparently led to an apology to the student(s) affected and a permanent withdrawal of the fellow from the college. Two years later it changed its mind, describing the original decision as “incorrect” since it had been “not agreed with” the fellow. Since when did an employer have to secure the agreement of an employee it is disciplining for sexual harassment?
Universities do not handle sexual misconduct complaints in a fair, non-discriminatory way. In our legal practice, representing sexual harassment victims, we see common failings recurring across higher education which may account for Trinity’s Hall’s inconsistency.
Instead of adopting an investigation which balances the rights of one party against another and reviews the facts in a transparent way, institutions tend to funnel complaints through their existing disciplinary processes.
While this has a semblance of legitimacy and will include protections for the accused, it ignores the rights of complainants, treating them as strangers to a process that is strictly between the university and the accused.
This would only work if universities’ interests were completely aligned with those of the complainants – but they are not. Universities have their own reputations to consider. And even if they put those aside entirely, the fact complainants have been deprived of a voice in the process repeatedly disadvantages them.
The practical effects of excluding complainants from the process are many. They are often not given an opportunity to counter “evidence” used to discredit them; they have no right to attend the hearing; they have no access to free legal representation; and they have no right to appeal or even know the outcome of the process.
When a university does share information with complainants it is an indulgence that is usually subject to overreaching conditions of confidentiality. Complainants are told that sharing information may be a disciplinary offence. This is not a fair process by which they can hold their universities and harassers to account.
Given the difficulty in reaching a decision on conflicting facts, it is no wonder that universities see the attraction in “resolving” a complaint by making a deal with the accused. The problem with side deals, however, is that they are either informal and fluid, and so change as circumstances change; or they are formal and enforceable but not by the victims of the harassment.
Trinity Hall’s decision is indicative of a wider problem pervading our universities: they are routinely depriving sexual harassment victims of a fair avenue of complaint. Universities must adapt their disciplinary process to give complainants the standard rights of natural justice expected of any adjudicatory system. Without this it is hard to see how they can meet their legal obligations to students, let alone their own hype about “zero tolerance”.
Publicație : The Guardian
University vice-chancellor stands aside over blackmail claims in Pakistan
Javed Iqbal denies involvement in scandal over alleged use of CCTV footage to extort money from students in Balochistan
The vice-chancellor of a university in the volatile region of Balochistan in Pakistan has temporarily stepped down from his role following the launch of an investigation into allegations of harassment and blackmail on campus.
Javed Iqbal said on Sunday that he was leaving his post at the University of Balochistan until the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) concluded its inquiry into claims that CCTV footage of students was used by university officials to blackmail them. Most of the students allegedly affected were female.
Iqbal refuted the allegations, telling the Guardian: “I have no involvement in this scandal.” Elsewhere, he has claimed the “allegations are based on lies”.
News of the FIA investigation has sparked a wave of protests across the country.
Hundreds of students have taken to the streets, including in the capital, Islamabad, and organised sit-ins at universities across the country.
It is alleged that footage showing male and female students mingling – from CCTV cameras installed around campus for security reasons – had been used by university staff to extort money and sexually harass female students. If they didn’t comply, it’s claimed that students were told the footage would be sent to their families.
Sharing borders with Iran and Afghanistan, Balochistan is the largest and least developed province of Pakistan. It is deeply conservative and it would be deemed “dishonourable” for a woman and man to be seen together unless they were married or with family members. The female literacy rate for the province is 24%, while the rate among males is 56%. Many fear that the university scandal will deter girls from entering higher education.
According to local media reports, the FIA has been investigating the claims for a couple of weeks and has interviewed dozens of university officials.
“We have traced 12 videos of harassment of female students,” a senior FIA officer, who declined to be named, told Dawn News TV. The report quoted the official as saying: “Most of the victims in the case are female students who were harassed by some officials of the university’s administration.”
The student protests sparked by the investigation are unprecedented at a university where political activism is banned due to insurgency in the region. The university campus is used as a base by the Frontier Corps, a paramilitary force deployed in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to help keep order and patrol the border areas with Afghanistan and Iran. Soldiers are active on campus and students have to undergo security checks when they enter their hostel accommodation.
Harassment is understood to have been occurring on campus for more than four years, and only came to light as a result of an investigation into an unrelated matter at the university.
Talking to the Guardian, student Sadia Baloch said: “Most of the female students residing in the university’s hostels have already left for home, as parents asked them to come back.”
She added: “We live in a tribal society and no girl would ever come forward to report harassment for fear of being killed in the name of honour. The harassers have used this fact to harass and blackmail girls when found mingling with male students, and threatened to send the compromising video footage to their families.”
On the request of anonymity, a female Masters student at the university said: “Last year, my class fellow left the university when she was continuously harassed by professors and administration officials, as she could neither report it nor share it with her parents. This harassment has been going on for over four years.”
Another female masters student said: “I have been harassed by a teacher and he asked me to date him to get good marks. We are harassed on a daily basis by teachers and administration officials. If we share it with [our] families, they would not let us continue our studies.
“It is very disappointing that this harassment is institutionalised. We feel like we live in a war zone amid soldiers, not a university.”
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) expressed concern about the allegations, and on a recent fact-finding mission found “an alarming level of surveillance on campus at the university”.
“While this is in place ostensibly for reasons of security, the recent allegations show how easy it is for surveillance to become a tool of harassment, most often at women’s expense. HRCP’s sources claim that the surveillance system is used as a means of moral policing as well as to disrupt any potential or suspected political activism among students, allegedly at the behest of the Frontier Corps personnel who are permanently deployed at the university.
“HRCP supports those students who have called this a gross violation of their privacy and a means of coercion, and welcomes the Balochistan high court’s decision to take notice of the matter. The Commission also urges the university administration to identify and penalise the perpetrators.”
The FIA said it would submit its findings to Balochistan high court on 29 October.
Publicație : The Guardian
Pay boost from university degrees declined over 20 years, research shows
Graduates born in 1970 enjoyed ‘graduate premium’ much larger than that of graduates born two decades later
University graduates born in 1970 enjoyed a much larger earnings boost than graduates born 20 years later, according to research by the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) and Warwick University.
It found that graduates born in 1990 earned 11 per cent more than non-graduates at age 26. But graduates born in 1970 earned 19 per cent more than their peers who did not go to university.
The „graduate premium” – a term used to refer to how much more graduates are likely to earn on average compared with their peers without a degree – fell by eight percentage points during this period.
It comes after a major expansion in the numbers of people going on to higher education in recent years.
The figures take into account factors such as time spent in the workplace and non-cognitive skills.
Graduates tend to have steeper growth in their earnings over time than non-graduates and further research will look at this.
Tej Nathwani, econometrician at HESA said: „Whilst the benefits of a degree are not solely financial, higher education remains a significant investment decision for young people.
„Changes in fees and funding have resulted in increased reliance on student loans, which are now treated differently in public sector finances.
„Consequently, graduate earnings continue to be an important area of research in higher education. This study adds to the available information about the financial benefits that individual students can expect from a degree.
„We hope to explore this area further in forthcoming years, as new data is released into the public domain.”
Bottom of Form
Dr Greg Walker, chief executive of universities’ group MillionPlus, said it was not „surprising” there there was a dip in returns for those who were born in 1990 as they joined the workforce after the Great Recession.
He said: „There is a significant positive financial return to higher education study even very early in a graduate’s career, at age 26, in addition to the wider benefits higher education brings to former students and society.”
Further research will look at graduates born after 1990 to determine whether the fall is a short-term dip or the beginning of a more general decline.
The findings come after an IFS study last year revealed that more than 130,000 men are enrolling on university courses that leave them worse off in future earnings early in their careers than non-graduates.
Publicație : The Independent
Università: 17mila studenti esclusi dagli alloggi
La denuncia del coordinamento Link: „Sono idonei, ma non beneficiari del posto letto. Il diritto allo studio deve essere garantito, sarà un autunno di mobilitazione”
Hanno fatto i conti sulle graduatorie definitive di alcune regioni che sono già uscite. E il bilancio è negativo, va peggio degli altri anni: oltre 17mila sudenti universitari sono rimasti esclusi dalla assegnazione degli alloggi. E ne avrebbero diritto.
La denuncia viene dal Coordinamento Link. Cosa succede? E’ aumentata la domanda, forse anche per effetto della No Tax area, e di conseguenza crescono i beneficiari del diritto allo studio (borse e posti letto). Ma gli alloggi rimangono gli stessi e dunque più studenti non trovano posto. „Se non ci sono più soldi nella legge di Bilancio e se l’edilizia universitaria rimane ferma la situazione diventa drammatica, è una vera emergenza” spiega Camilla Guarino, coordinatrice di Link.
„Al momento, con l’uscita delle prime graduatorie per i posti alloggio, i dati provenienti dalle diverse regioni sulla copertura dei posti alloggio sono estremamente preoccupanti – dichiara – vi sono oltre 17.000 studenti e studentesse a cui non viene garantito un posto nelle residenze universitarie pur avendone diritto (il 57% del totale), e parliamo solo di alcune regioni del Paese. Nel Lazio sono quasi 5.000 gli idonei non beneficiari (+20% degli idonei rispetto allo scorso anno), nel Piemonte 4.000 (+32%)”.
L’emergenza alloggi è più forte nei grandi centri: 4.000 studenti idonei ma non beneficiari dello studentato a Roma, 3.800 a Torino, 2.400 a Milano, 1.700 a Catania. Inoltre – aggiungono gli studenti – vi sono ancora 7.500 idonei non beneficiari di borsa di studio dallo scorso anno accademico in tutto il paese, e numerose regioni che non raggiungono ancora la copertura totale degli aventi diritto”.
Insomma, sul diritto allo studio gli universitari reclamano un intervento del Governo, promesso in termini di risorse dallo stesso ministro Lorenzo Fioramonti anche nell’incontro coi sindacati a fine settembre.
„Risulta chiaro che le risorse messe in campo dalle Regioni e dallo Stato per il diritto allo studio non siano minimamente sufficienti – attacca Link – e ci prepariamo a un autunno di mobilitazione in tutti i territori, perché gli studenti e le studentesse sono stanchi di non vedere garantiti i propri diritti”.
Il coordinamento chiede che venga garantito il posto alloggio a tutti coloro che ne hanno diritto per merito e reddito. Inoltre suggerisce una politica di riconversione degli immobili in disuso e dei beni confiscati alle mafie in studentati.
Publicație : La Repubblica