Universitatea "Cuza" din Iasi, la conferinta si targul educational ale EAIE (European Association for International Education)
O delegatie a Universitatii "Alexandru Ioan Cuza" (UAIC) din Iasi a participat la Helsinki - Finlanda, in perioada 24 – 27 septembrie 2019, la conferinta si targul educational ale EAIE (European Association for International Education).
Evenimentul, aflat la a XXXI-a editie, a reunit un numar-record de peste 6.200 de participanti din 95 de tari - rectori, prorectori, directori de relatii internationale, reprezentanti de guverne, ai Comisiei Europene, directori de programe internationale.
Pe parcursul evenimentului, delegatia Universitatii "Cuza" a avut discutii cu participanti din 22 de tari, reprezentanti ai 55 de universitati - parteneri actuali sau in perspectiva din: Ankara, Atena, Besancon, Bologna, Cankiri, Creteil, Eskisehir, Gaziantep, Granada, Graz, Grenoble, Groningen, Haifa, Heerlen, Istanbul, Keyseri, Konstanz, Lodz, Lyon, Mardin, Maastricht, Montreal, Nagoya, Namur, Nicosia, Ottawa, Oxford, Québec, Ramat Gan, Riga, Sapporo, Seul, Siena, St. Louis, Suita, Tampere, Tbilisi, Tokyo, Turku, Veszprem, Viena, Vilnius, Volda, Yokohama.
"In discutiile cu experti ai Comisiei Europene, ai unor Agentii Nationale si ai unor organizatii specializate in evaluari si ierarhizari educationale, membrii delegatiei UAIC au abordat chestiuni privind cadrul general al unor viitoare programe si proiecte. La incheierea conferintei EAIE, in cadrul unei intrevederi cu presedintele EAIE, Sabine Pendl (Universitatea din Graz), aceasta a acceptat invitatia de a vizita Universitatea "Cuza" din Iasi in cursul acestui an", au precizat oficialii de la "Cuza".
Fondata in 1989, European Association for International Education (EAIE) este o organizatie non-profit a carei misiune asumata este de a furniza profesionistilor implicati in internationalizare o platforma pentru comunicare, pentru stabilire si consolidare de parteneriate, prin organizarea de conferinte, expozitii si alte tipuri de evenimente educationale internationale.
Publicație : Bună Ziua Iași
Două universităţi de stat din România ajung în instanţă. Cum vrea rectorul Tudorel Toader să obţină tot Palatul Universitar din Copou
Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza” din Iaşi a trimis către Universitatea Tehnică „Gheorghe Asachi” Iaşi o notificare de evacuare a spaţiului ocupat în Palatul Universitar din Copou.
În prezent, rectorul Universităţii Tehnice „Gh Asachi”, Dan Caşcaval, vrea să renoveze o parte din clădirea pe care o împarte cu Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”.
Anunţul a fost făcut la festivitatea de deschiderea a anului universitar 2019-2020. „Este un moment de bilanţ. Am reuşit şi pornim acum la drum cu reabilitarea unor clădiri importante din universitatea noastră. A fost un proces destul de migălos şi destul de scump, dacă ne referim la valoarea proiectelor pentru reabilitarea Corpului A. Va fi o activitatea ceva mai dificilă, pentru că depindem şi de Ministerul Culturii, având în vedere că este o clădire de patrimoniu, dar am făcut toate demersurile ca să putem iniţia şi ca să putem demara această reabilitare”, a declarat Dan Caşcaval.
Pe de altă parte, Tudorel Toader, rectorul Universităţii „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, spune că instanţa de judecată este cea care trebuie să decidă în războiul pornit cu Universitatea Tehnică „Gheorghe Asachi”.
„Acolo unde apar divergenţe privind o problemă sau alta, de data asta de natură patrimonială, cel care decide este judecătorul. Vom vedea pe probe ce va spune instanţa de judecată. Nu vreau să intru în polemică. Mai amintesc doar faptul că Institutul Politehnic s-a înfiinţat după ce Universitatea s-a construit. Vă amintesc faptul că în 1946 Senatul Institutului Politehnic făcea o scrisoare către Senatul de la Cuza şi cerea să rămână în găzduirea noastră până îşi vor termina de construit sediile din Bucşinescu.”
Prezent la deschiderea anului universitar 2019-2020 la Politehnica ieşeană, Nicolae Hurduc, Ministrul Cercetării, a atins şi el acest subiect. „Acest corp de clădire a fost distrus complet în cel de-al Doilea Război Mondial şi a fost reconstruit de studenţii şi cadrele didactice de la Politehnică. Au cărat în spate cărămizile cu ajutorul unor suporturi de lemn care se foloseau la acea vreme. Acest corp de clădire a fost construit după război şi în mod normal, aşa cum a fost alocat în perioada respectivă, el revine Politehnicii din Iaşi. Pare puţin paradoxal, dar cei de la Cuza ar putea fi chiriaşii Politehnicii. Trebuie ţinut cont de aspectele istorice.”
De la terminarea celui de-al Doilea Război Mondial şi până în prezent Politehnica şi-a construit mai multe corpuri de clădire pentru activităţile sale, însă nu a mai eliberat jumătatea Palatului Universitar aşa cum ar fi fost stabilit, acolo desfăşurându-şi în prezent activitatea Facultatea de Electronică, Telecomunicaţii şi Tehnologia Informaţiei.
În partea corpului pentru care se războiesc liderii celor două universităţi se află şi câteva încăperi simbol pentru Iaşiul academic: Sala Paşilor Pierduţi, Aula Magna „Carmen Sylva” şi Biblioteca universităţii.
În urmă cu 18 ani, UAIC i-a dat în judecată pe cei de la Universitatea Tehnică, pentru a putea intabula clădirea pe numele lor, iar trei instanţe de judecată au respins solicitarea.
Publicație : Adevărul
MEPs supportive of research chief’s drive to close east-west gap
Some parliamentarians hope Bulgaria’s Mariya Gabriel will reshape the EU’s new research package to spread grants more evenly across the continent
MEPs have expressed support for the effort planned by the European Union’s new research chief to stem the brain drain of academic talent from the east to the west of the bloc.
Mariya Gabriel, the Bulgarian conservative who has been nominated as the EU’s next commissioner for innovation and youth, told MEPs at a confirmation hearing that some countries were “too often” stuck in a “vicious circle of low local investment [and] low wages” and a “brain drain” of talent out of the country.
One of the key debates over Horizon Europe – the bloc’s upcoming €94 billion (£83.6 billion) science and innovation package – is the extent to which money should be awarded on the basis of “excellence”, a principle critics argue favours established research systems in western Europe, or spread out more evenly, funnelling more money to poorer performing and often former communist states.
Maria Da Graça Carvalho, a Portuguese MEP and former science minister who quizzed the incoming commissioner, told Times Higher Education that Ms Gabriel “will have freedom to change” the setup of Horizon Europe so that it bridges the east-west divide.
Although a plan to equalise salaries for grantees across the EU has been dropped, it has been suggested that more money should be made available to allow researchers in weaker performing countries to “hop on” to existing projects, allowing them to break into existing academic circles.
“[Ms Gabriel] made very clear that excellence is the criterion but...there is a lot to be done so that Horizon Europe is able to capture excellence where excellence is” and not just in the “very well-known institutions”, said Ms Carvalho.
Despite an initial agreement in Brussels on the broad shape of Horizon Europe earlier this year, “there are still open questions” about how it will actually play out, Ms Carvalho said.
“To have a successful programme we need to have our member states happy with the programme,” she argued. “There are top researchers in Poland and Romania. It’s a pity for Europe that they are not involved in the scientific programme.”
Ivars Ijabs, a Latvian MEP and a member of the EU parliament’s industry, research and energy committee, told THE that he had “no reason not to believe her that this is going to be a priority”.
But member states had to play their part in catching up too, he said, and Horizon Europe should encourage this by making some cash conditional on “promoting reform and investment”.
Henna Virkkunen, a Finnish MEP, warned that Horizon Europe has to be “based on excellence” and that the shape of the programme was already quite fixed.
In Finland, which joined the EU in 1995, “in the first 10-15 years we were not very successful in these research programmes because we did not have the expertise and the contacts”, she said, but now the country’s universities were “much more active”.
The research gap was not just a question of east and west, said Ms Carvalho. There was also a gulf between countries in the north and south of the continent, as well as within nations.
During her grilling by MEPs, Ms Gabriel also said she supported their calls for a higher Horizon Europe budget – which still ultimately depends on the EU’s wider financial wranglings and Brexit.
Publicație : The Times
REF must accommodate more diverse outputs, says study
Report for Research England warns assessment may be constraining academics' publishing options
The UK’s research excellence framework should evolve to support the growing diversity of scholarly outputs, a major report says.
The study by consultants Rand Europe, who were commissioned by Research England to consider how research assessment might need to evolve over the next decade, draws on a survey of 3,768 academics in England.
It says that, while scholars currently produce an average of 4.7 different types of research output, this is likely to increase to 6.5 over the next decade, with 65 per cent of respondents saying that they expected to produce a greater diversity of output.
Respondents said that the three most dominant forms of output were likely to remain journal articles, conference contributions and book chapters. But many mentioned other types of content that they expected to produce more of in future: for example, website content, openly published peer reviews and research reports for external bodies.
Nearly a quarter of respondents said that, in an ideal world, they would produce different forms of outputs to those that they currently do, with producing fewer journal articles being the most popular response. However, of those who said this, more than one in five said that they were unable to do this because it would hinder their career progression or because of the current publishing and peer review model.
Others said that they were unable to produce the outputs that they would ideally like to because they felt that they were not valued at an institutional or research system level, or by the REF.
“Many expressed [the view] that other output forms are desirable, but producing them takes time away from writing journal articles, which will be more significant in career progression and future funding opportunities,” the report says.
There were significant differences across disciplines about what outputs will look like in the future, with scientists expecting to produce more preprints, datasets and code, for example, and scholars in the arts, humanities and social sciences expecting to produce more social media posts, blogs and podcasts.
The study concludes that it is “important that national research assessment can shift with the research landscape”.
“The survey indicated an expected increase in diversity of output forms, with the possibility that research projects may produce a ‘basket’ of outputs that complement each other, rather than one key output (such as a journal article),” the study concludes. “The vast majority of outputs that have been submitted to research assessment exercises in the UK (and considered as important and hence used within promotion and hiring decisions) represent a small number of output forms; they are largely journal articles and books, depending on discipline…
“If the increased diversity of output forms is considered valuable to the system and need assessment, then it may be necessary to consider suitable ways to encourage the submission of these forms of output and ensure appropriate capacity to both assess and ensure confidence in the assessment of these outputs.
“This is because, as shown in this study, national research assessment and funder requirements and policies are drivers of the forms of output researchers produce.”
In the 2014 REF, more than 80 per cent of submissions were journal articles, 8 per cent were book chapters, and 5 per cent were authored books. All other output forms made up just 6 per cent of the submissions.
Publicație : The Times
Harvard’s admissions victory likely to offer short-lived relief
Ivy League icon praised for defending race-based admissions, but faulted for actual record
Harvard University’s victory in its affirmative action lawsuit may offer it fleeting glory, having disappointed both allies and critics who see minorities still struggling for fair opportunities.
The five-year lawsuit ended with a federal judge in Boston leaving no doubt that she believed Harvard demonstrated both the value of using race-based considerations in admissions and the legal fidelity of its implementation methods.
Such practices, at Harvard and beyond, “will move us, one day, to the point where we see that race is a fact, but not the defining fact” of human relationships, the judge, Allison Burroughs, wrote in her opinion.
But, as had long been expected, the group challenging affirmative action in admissions at Harvard and other universities, Students for Fair Admissions, promised an appeal, looking toward a US Supreme Court with members more conservative than those that have upheld affirmative action in the past.
Yet others – including experts who staked out positions on opposing sides of the trial – saw Harvard as not doing nearly enough to help minority applicants, and they plan to keep pressing it and other elite universities for more improvement.
Peter Arcidiacono, a professor of economics at Duke University who helped SFFA argue that its plaintiff, an Asian American student, was denied admission because racial preferences favoured other ethnic minorities, called Judge Burroughs’ decision “obviously very disappointing” and a “licence to discriminate”. SFFA used Professor Arcidiacono’s analyses to contend that their plaintiff and other Asian American students – who already claim a share of Harvard’s student body well in excess of their percentages of the US population – would hold an even higher share if rated solely on academic and related achievements.
Yet Professor Arcidiacono, just before the trial decision was announced, joined two other experts in issuing a pair of studies – published by the non-partisan National Bureau of Economic Research – showing that Harvard still does much too little to help black and Hispanic students gain admission.
One study found that three-quarters of Harvard’s white students with an advantaged status – recruited athletes, children of faculty and staff, and those with family or economic ties to the university – would have been rejected as applicants without that status.
The second study found that Harvard continues to admit consistent numbers of athletes and students with family links even as its application rates soar, creating further advantages for white and wealthier students.
Such realities, said Evan Mandery, a Harvard graduate and professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, made Judge Burroughs’ decision – for all its aspirational language – a badly missed opportunity.
While ending the types of preferences critiqued in Professor Arcidiacono’s studies would not eliminate racial biases in Harvard’s admissions, it would do a lot to help, Professor Mandery said.
Instead, Professor Mandery noted, Judge Burroughs concluded that race-based preferences in assessing applicants were warranted at Harvard because no other reasonable alternatives could be found.
In particular, the judge suggested that ending admissions advantages for athletes – who, Professor Arcidiacono and others have pointed out, often play sports that are far more accessible to white and wealthy applicants – would make Harvard “far less competitive in Ivy League intercollegiate sports, which would adversely impact Harvard and the student experience”.
“Her reasoning is stunning,” Professor Mandery said. “In other words, it’s OK for Harvard to do affirmative action for rich, white applicants so that it can remain competitive in football and squash.”
US colleges clearly need to do more than implement race-conscious admissions assessments, said John Yang, president of Asian Americans Advancing Justice, which sided with Harvard in the trial.
Affirmative action in admissions served as “a safeguard against discrimination”, Mr Yang said. “Schools and universities clearly need to do more to increase diversity and inclusion.”
Publicație : The Times
Death of the monograph greatly exaggerated, say academics
Report suggests researchers feel there is no substitute for the traditional book-length contribution to knowledge
While journal articles are just “fishing trips with friends at the local pond”, monographs are “three-year voyages from which no one returns unchanged”.
That is the view of a respondent to an international survey of more than 5,000 researchers in the social sciences and humanities. Despite much talk about the death of the monograph, they make it clear how central it is to their work, their careers and even their identities, and how it is likely to remain so.
Published jointly by long-term rivals Cambridge University Press and Oxford University Press, Researchers’ Perspectives on the Purpose and Value of the Monograph: Survey Results 2019 reports that “91 per cent of respondents considered monographs ‘extremely’ or ‘very’ important to the overall body of knowledge in their subject area”. Although the figure for those working in the humanities was even higher (95 per cent), 87 per cent of social scientists were in agreement with them. Researchers in religion, history, philosophy and literature “valued monographs slightly more than journal articles”, while experts in disciplines such as law, politics and modern languages “valued journal articles marginally more than monographs”. And what is true now looked likely to remain true: “83 per cent of respondents anticipate that the monograph, in its current form, is ‘extremely’ or ‘very’ likely to have value for their work/research in 10 years’ time”.
Alongside the crucial importance of monographs for career-building, some respondents stressed that such works had shaped their thinking. One early career researcher claimed that he or she “might not have started to study what I finally did since monographs open up worlds to the reader that other formats can’t do the same way”. Asked to give detail about what the possible loss of the monograph might mean, a mid-career researcher noted that their field “would move more quickly, but would lose a significant amount of genuinely field-shaping, provocative, immensely important literature”.
Another argued that humanities scholarship “requires a venue to make a deep, sustained engagement with evidence, the scholarly record, and argument. If the monograph did not exist it would be necessary to invent it…the monograph can only go away if the humanities go away, which some people wish to make happen, but they will not succeed within 10 years. I hope they never succeed.”
Respondents also pointed to ways that the monograph needed to be adapted to the times.
Some expressed a desire for “a mid-length category (eg, 30,000-60,000 words) between journal articles and monographs” or “criticised the double-blind peer review system” because they “felt limited by not being able to react to reviewers’ comments”. Others “suggested adding supplementary material (eg, videos, images, maps, interactive elements) to the book online”. One late-career researcher commented that publishers were “not keeping up with research trends, for example, the visual turn in history writing”.
Publicație : The Times
A l’université de Clermont, un bilan mitigé pour les parcours renforcés
C’est l’une des nouveautés de Parcoursup : certains bacheliers, jugés trop fragiles sur le plan scolaire, ont été orientés vers des parcours renforcés. Un an après, l’échec à l’université a néanmoins gardé ses mille visages.
Sur le papier, les premiers pas de Marion à l’université ont été un échec. La jeune femme, en dépit du parcours renforcé qu’elle a suivi, n’a pas réussi à valider sa première année de licence de droit à l’université Clermont Auvergne. Mais cette étudiante de 19 ans ne voit pas les choses ainsi : « Je m’en serais toujours voulu de ne pas avoir essayé. Et ça m’a beaucoup servi. » Elle ne rêve plus de devenir avocate et a décidé de changer de voie. En septembre, elle a fait sa rentrée en IUT (institut universitaire de technologie).
Marion fait partie des « oui si », comme les appelle la plate-forme Parcoursup lorsqu’elle donne à chacun ses réponses d’affectation. Entendez : « oui », vous êtes admis à l’université, mais vous ne remplissez pas les prérequis, donc ce sera seulement « si » vous suivez un parcours particulier. A la rentrée 2019, 30 369 étudiants ont été admis à l’université par cette voie, soit deux fois plus que l’année précédente.
Grande nouveauté de Parcoursup lors de son lancement en 2018, ces parcours renforcés étaient censés limiter les risques de décrochage et d’échec pour les candidats au niveau jugé insuffisant. Mais pour Marion, cela n’a pas suffi : « Je me suis accrochée, mais j’ai bien vu que cela n’allait pas être possible », raconte cette bachelière professionnelle de la voie gestion-administration.
+ 10 points de réussite
A l’université Clermont Auvergne, la moitié des vingt-sept licences ont mis en place ce dispositif dès 2018. La quasi-totalité y a recours en cette rentrée. En sciences, en droit-économie-gestion, ou encore en sciences et techniques des activités physiques et sportives (Staps), quelque 625 étudiants – soit entre 15 % et 25 % des promos de première année – ont suivi des modules supplémentaires (disciplinaires, méthodologiques, etc.) l’année passée.
Pour les Staps, le résultat est important : + 10 points de réussite. Et ce, avec le même recrutement, sans sélection à l’entrée puisque l’université auvergnate a pu aller jusqu’au bout de sa liste de candidatures.
Nasser Hammache, le directeur de la faculté, a bien en tête ce chiffre en accueillant un groupe d’une vingtaine d’étudiants en parcours renforcé, le 19 septembre, sur le campus des Cézeaux, entre volcans et barres d’immeubles. Des jeunes parfois un peu « surpris » d’avoir été ainsi orientés, alors qu’une grande partie d’entre eux ont réussi un bac général et obtenu une mention « assez bien ». « Attention, ce n’est pas un gage de réussite, les met en garde M. Hammache. On part de loin, souligne-t-il. Nous étions à 37 % de réussite en première année, là on est arrivé à 47 %. »
Publicație : Le Monde
Dans les grandes écoles, « on se moque du “polard”, celui qui fait des efforts »
Les élèves qui gardent le rythme de la prépa sont moqués car pour s’intégrer, il faut être « intelligemment paresseux ».
Julien était arrivé premier aux partiels de son école d’ingénieurs. Alors, il avait voulu marquer le coup en amenant un bon gros gâteau fait maison en cours d’informatique. « Ah ça ! C’était vraiment le summum du “polard” ! », rigole, quinze ans plus tard, un collègue de promo à l’Ensimag, école en informatique et mathématiques appliquées de Grenoble.
A chaque école son jargon : les « polards », les « têtards » ou encore les « pougneurs »… Autant d’expressions qui désignent ces élèves que l’on raille dans les grandes écoles, parce qu’ils s’adonnent au travail avec acharnement, leur but premier étant la réussite académique. Le Toucan déchaîné, journal des élèves de CentraleSupélec, donne ainsi le ton, dans une édition de mars 2018 :
« Ne vous approchez pas de telles personnes, elles peuvent avoir un comportement dangereux, surtout à l’approche des partiels ou des CFs [contrôles]. Heureusement pour vous, elles ne représentent qu’une infime partie de ce campus de bons gros glandeurs. »
Un problème d’adaptation
Pour comprendre ce phénomène, il faut savoir que dans les discours comme sur les plaquettes promotionnelles, les grandes écoles se présentent comme des lieux où l’on va pouvoir faire autre chose que du scolaire. « Cela correspond à une attente de la direction des écoles : l’excellence s’incarne dans “l’individu complet”, c’est-à-dire l’élève capable de multiplier les engagements scolaires et associatifs, et de réussir tout ce qu’il entreprend », détaille Christophe Birolini, diplômé de CentraleSupélec en 2017, auteur en 2018 d’un mémoire de recherche sur les polards. Ainsi, le polard serait celui qui ne se serait pas « adapté » au contexte des grandes écoles, et qui, gardant les habitudes prises en classes préparatoires, voit très vite ses repères s’effondrer une fois admis.
Publicație : Le Monde
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