Dear Friends,

At the last meeting of GACER in Bonn in May of 2012, Prof Hans Schuetze, one of the best known Higher Education scholars working in the field of comparative studies agreed to lead a discussion about engagement and the rankings game. To this end he has launched a blog space to begin to develop some thoughts about community university engagement in the context of what are popularly known as the "league tables".  Many people working in engaged scholarship feel that the rankings tables are a distraction from more important ways of understanding universities and society.

How should we respond?  Are the league tables going anywhere soon?  Should there be more developmentally framed approaches to measuring higher education excellence?  Would the application of the Carnegie tools for measuring engagement (developed in the USA) be of any use on the global scene>

Please join Hans and help us to deepen our understanding of these issues and find some new approaches to changing/adapting/rejecting or working around the ranking systems.

Budd L Hall and Rajesh Tandon
Co-Chairs
UNESCO Chair in Community-Based Research and Social Responsibility of Higher Education

Dear colleagues,

As discussed in Bonn last May, I have started a blog on Community Engagement and University Rankings on the PASCAL web site (PASCAL Shortlink: http://pobs.cc/p7aq).

Please comment and invite people of your interested in this theme to join the discussion.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Regards,

Hans

Dr. Hans G. Schuetze
Professor em., Department of Educational Studies
Research Associate, Centre for Policy Studies in Higher Education and Training
University of British Columbia
2125 Main Mall
VANCOUVER,B.C. V6T 1Z4
CANADA

tel (604) 822-5881 or -5374 (assistants); fax 822-4244

APRES LE PAIN, L'EDUCATION EST LE PREMIER BESOIN DU PEUPLE (Danton)

Recent publications:

H. G. Schuetze (20012) University governance reform: The drivers and the driven. In Schuetze, H. G., Bruneau, W., & G. Grosjean. (Eds.). University governance and reform - Policy, fads, and experience in international perspective (pp. 3-10). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Slowey, M., & Schuetze, H. G. (Eds.). (2012). Global perspectives on higher education and lifelong learners. London and New York: Routledge.

Schuetze, H. G., & Alvarez Mendiola, G. (Eds.). (2012). State and market in higher education reforms Trends, policies and experiences in comparative perspective. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.

Schuetze, H. G. (2012). Universities and their communities - Engagement and service as primary mission. In L. McIlrath, A. Lyons & R. Munck (Eds.), Higher education and civic engagement - Comparative perspectives (pp. 61 - 77). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Schuetze, H. G., Kuehn, L., Davidson-Harden, A., Schugurensky, D. & Weber, N (2011). Globalization, neoliberalism and schools: The Canadian story. In C. A. Torres, L. Olmos & R. Van Heertum (Eds.), In the Shadow of Neoliberalism: Thirty Years of Educational Reform in North America. Oak Park, IL: Bentham Books. http://www.benthamscience.com/ebooks/contents.php?JCode=9781608052684

Schuetze, H. G. (2010). The 'third mission' of universities: Community engagement and service. In P. Inman & H. G. Schuetze (Eds.), The community engagement and service mission of universities (pp. 13-32). Leicester (UK): NIACE.