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by Alexis Mattera

International campuses are becoming somewhat of a trend lately – NYU, Yale and Vanderbilt all have plans in the works – but the faculty at one well-known school is questioning its proposed overseas operation.

Duke University approved the first round of development for a comprehensive campus in Kunshan, China nearly a year and a half ago but educators voiced their concerns to President Richard Brodhead at a recent academic council meeting. Though the school already has an overseas presence (Duke partnered with the National University of Singapore to create a graduate medical program in 2005), faculty members said now that the campus is actually under construction, they feel they’ve been left out of the loop on matters including cost, academic freedom, Internet access and faculty involvement and buy-in. Craig Henriquez, chairman of Duke’s academic council, believes faculty members are just as apprehensive about the Kunshan campus as they would be about anything unfamiliar. “In the beginning I think most people saw it as just simply an idea,” he said. “But now that it’s all coming together, I think you’re starting to see a level of anxiety that comes with any new venture.”

To be clear, there have been some major changes to the initial proposal (check out Inside Higher Ed’s article for specifics) but Provost Peter Lange says that since “nobody has ever launched something like this before,” the school has to be “cautious and careful, but we also have to take some risks in order to learn what is possible." Do you agree with the administration or side with the faculty on this matter? Would you be interested in attending Duke’s Kunshan campus given the controversy?

by Alexis Mattera

This is not a good week for higher education in China. First, a cheating scam is toppled just days before the national college entrance exam and now, it’s been discovered that Shaanxi Normal University Press is selling transcripts of Yale University’s free online courses.

The content – five transcripts from Open Yale Courses, a program that’s been offering free online videos of popular Yale classes since 2007 – has been published by Shaanxi without Yale’s permission. In addition to lifting content from the video lectures, Shaanxi also took material directly from the transcripts’ translations prepared by YYeTs, a Chinese nonprofit. Diana Kleiner, a Yale art history professor and principal investigator for Open Yale Courses, told the Yale Alumni Magazine blog “possibly as much as 95 percent” of the material was copied; this plus the sale of the content violates the terms of the course giveaway, which states others cannot profit from the material.

Though one professor says he is flattered by the attention, Yale officials are less than pleased, especially since the school is planning its own book series based on the Open Yale Courses.

by Alexis Mattera

There’s some big news coming out of Greenwich Village that will have an impact on students nearly 4,000 miles away. It’s NYU Shanghai and no, it doesn’t involve James Franco.

Late Sunday, the school announced plans to launch "a comprehensive research university with a liberal arts and science college" in Shanghai. This is a big deal for New York University, as the campus will be the first American university with full, independent authority in China and another step toward creating NYU's goal of a "global network university." (The school has a similar facility in Abu Dhabi.)

Application materials aren’t available just yet – the first students aren’t expected to be enrolled until the fall of 2013 (half from China and the other half from the rest of the world) and will be admitted based on factors beyond China’s national college admissions test – but nearly 3,000 undergraduate, graduate and professional students could eventually call NYU Shanghai home. Like at its home campus, students will have access to a comprehensive liberal arts education, dormitories, athletic programs, student clubs and career counseling and but unique to the NYU global network university model, students can spend as many as three semesters studying in New York, in Abu Dhabi, or in one of the other NYU global sites that form what NYU calls its "circulatory system."

Will you be adding NYU Shanghai to your college search?

by Alexis Mattera

There have been countless movie and television show plots surrounding forms of academic dishonesty but in real life, cheating doesn’t pay. The cheater’s reputation, on the other hand, does. Dearly.

The Associated Press reported 62 individuals have been detained by China's Education Ministry for selling wireless devices they believe would be used to cheat on the upcoming college entrance exam. Since the plot was discovered before the exam, however, the ministry hopes its actions will protect the test's integrity, which more than 9 million high school students are expected to take this week.

Whether it’s copying and pasting someone else’s words into your paper, crafting the tiniest of crib sheets or constructing an elaborate system of two-way radios to relay information in real time, cheating is everywhere. The good news is that educators are fighting back with new outlooks, smarter software, harsher punishments to curb students’ urges to cheat. Are these tactics working? The jury’s still out. What’s being done at your school to limit and eventually stop academic dishonesty? Do you have any suggestions how to make these methods more effective?

Perhaps, for the time being, American colleges (see Harvard, Princeton, Yale, etc.) are among the most desirable in the world, but there is some concern that this might not always be so and that perhaps this shouldn't be taken for granted.

Before Toyota started shipping automobiles to the United states in ever-increasing quantities, General Motors ruled. The American car was king in the U.S. and led all other auto companies world-wide for three quarters of a century. That began to change in the 80's and now it is not uncommon, even right here in the heartland of America, to see more Japanese cars on your morning commute than those manufactured in the United St. Could we have learned a lesson from Japan? Taken a page from their playbook maybe and avoided the enormous failure and subsequent government bailout of what was once the auto sales leader for 77 consecutive years? There are those who believe education is set on a similar trajectory. Here are five things we might want to consider:

1. Building Human Capital While college costs continue to rise in the U.S. and it becomes more and more difficult for high school grads to attend college, China is making sure its young people have an opportunity to get a post-secondary education. Apparently they, along with other East Asian countries, see a strong connection between the education of its citizens and its burgeoning economy and are working to build human capital to ensure continued growth and success.
2. Policy May Set Pace China is set to outpace the U.S. not just in college grads, but also in world-class universities. This is primarily due to the amount of importance they place on education and the funding they commit to seeing that it succeeds. If we are to have any hope of keeping up with China, India and Japan in the coming decades, we may want to consider a similar approach and learn from the success of these programs and their dedication to higher education.
3. Beware Hubris It's probably not a good idea to assume that, because there presently are no Asian institutions listed among the top 20 worldwide, there won't soon be. According to Yale's president, Richard C. Levin, there is likely to be some change in the coming years, with National University of Singapore one of the schools likely to break into the top twenty.
4. Eyes on Asia It might be a good idea to take a serious look at some of the programs the most successful schools in Asia have implemented and consider building some of our own in select institutions, for a start. Getting students involved in more global, real-life situations and positions earlier, for example, might be something we should be doing more of.
5. If You Can't Beat 'Em OK, it may be a bit early to admit defeat and, if we step it up a bit, maybe concession won't be necessary, but working with Asian universities could be among the key steps we could take to improve the quality of the education we offer in the U.S.

by Kara Coleman

Many universities across the country offer study abroad programs for students who wish to spend a semester in another country. Every student that I know of who has ever participated in one of these programs hails it as a once-in-a-lifetime experience...but what if you can’t afford to spend an entire semester overseas or you don’t want to interfere with your planned graduation date or schoolwork? Consider seeing the world on shorter-term trips during the summer! You’ll still get the experience of traveling and seeing what life is like in other countries without taking a lot of time off from work or school.

This past May, my university sent 10 students from its honors program to China for two weeks. Though they did do a few touristy things, they spent most of their time learning at Taizhou University. Because the Chinese academic year is different than ours in the U.S., the Chinese students were still in classes and the American students were able to jump in and study alongside them after their final exams had been completed at home. The best part? The trip was completely paid for by JSU!

You can also use the summer months to explore the world on a trip not associated with your college. Last month, I spent a week in Honduras on a mission trip, where I volunteered in a shelter for homeless children. I was able to experience firsthand what life is like in a third-world country and have plenty to tell my friends about when school starts back up later this month.

So where will you be at this time next year? Studying kung fu in a Chinese university? Playing soccer with kids in Central America? Or maybe something completely different? A whole world of opportunities awaits you – literally!

Kara Coleman graduated from Gadsden State Community College with an Associate of Arts degree and she is currently studying communications with concentration in print journalism at Jacksonville State University. Kara's writing has been featured in Teen Ink magazine and she is a children's author through Big Dif Books; she is also the editor-in-chief of JSU's student newspaper, The Chanticleer.