scholarly journals Changing the Things I Cannot Accept: My African Experience of A U.S. Classroom

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Roselyn Banda

This article outlines the impact of cultural shock and my way of overcoming it as I migrated to the U.S. as an international student. Often-times, even in academia, where we learn to question and look at things from multiple angles, we essentialize subject positions and as a result silence, alienate and erase many people. Through the use of narrative, I am giving voice to my own struggles with silence and erasure inside of academia in the hopes that other scholars will consider their own complicity in this process and perhaps expand their own thinking and curriculum choices for the courses they teach. In addition, I hope to create space to build solidarity across difference both in and outside of the university.

Author(s):  
Erin Graff Zivin ◽  
Peggy Kamuf ◽  
Geoffrey Bennington

The impact of Derrida’s work in the U.S. and continental Europe—principally in the disciplines of philosophy, English, French, Comparative Literature, gender and queer studies and postcolonial studies—has been studied at length, but the significance of his writing for Hispanism has been, until now, overlooked. And yet Derrida developes a terminology and addresses sets of problems in ways that have a direct and distinctive effect on philosophers and literary critics in Spain and Latin America, where his work circulates widely in excellent translation. Problems and themes that resonate distinctively in one way in the European or North American context echo quite differently in Latin America and in Spain: the trace; nationalism and cosmopolitanism; spectrality and hauntology; the relation of subjectivity and truth; the university; disciplinarity; and institutionality. Remarkably, the influence is in a profound sense reciprocal: over the course of his career, Derrida takes up and makes central to his thought the theme of marranismo, the phenomenon of Sephardic crypto-Judaism. Derrida’s marranismo is a means of taking apart traditional accounts of identity; a way for Derrida to reflect on the status of the secret; a philosophical nexus where language, nationalism and truth-telling meet and clash in productive ways; a way of elaborating a critique of modern biopolitics. It is far from being simply and only a marker of his work’s Hispanic identity, but it is also, and irreducibly, that.


Dynamics in the higher education, internalisation and global economic turmoil drastically influences the research outcomes with implications to the global ranking of higher education institutions (HEIs) and the universities. National education policies and the ranking of higher education institutions (HEIs) are entwined and mutually influence each other. In recent times, the global ranking by various organisations like QS, THE, and government agencies become proxy to conclude the excellence of a university. National Global, regional and national socio-economic-political concerns are influencing the functioning of universities with respect to international student recruitments. International student admissions also greatly contribute to the funds for the university and economy of the nations, simultaneously. This research paper is an investigative study of value creation in the university education systems and the impact of ranking and higher education policies. In this paper, authors have highlighted a couple of key points. First of all, the universities have to acclimatize as per the global rankings standards and reinforce to become value creation centers, with more responsible towards the demands of society. The authors have highlighted about the convolution and challenges universities are facing and measures to deal with. The conscientious approach to the facades of new knowledge areas in the new global socio-economic milieu gives a tangible and relevance to the execution of responsible research and innovation with value co-creation in university systems.


2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 249-268
Author(s):  
Luisa Veras de Sandes-Guimaraes ◽  
Artur Tavares Vilas Boas Ribeiro ◽  
Justin Hugo Axel-Berg ◽  
Guilherme de Rosso Manços ◽  
Guilherme Ary Plonski

This article assesses whether or not students with international exchange experience return to their home countries with qualitatively different perspectives on the way universities can play a role in fostering innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystems. It includes survey data collected from 516 Brazilian undergraduates asked to rank characteristics of an entrepreneurial university on a scale from 1 to 5. The findings of this study suggest that those with international experience tended to emphasize connections between university and nonacademic partners, compared with nontraveling counterparts, who emphasized the importance of infrastructure in the university. Therefore, use of such programs may have an impact upon the structure of ST&I (Science Technology and Innovation) systems.


Author(s):  
Zahed Siddique ◽  
Patricia Hardre´ ◽  
Amy Bradshaw ◽  
Mrinal Saha ◽  
Farrokh Mistree

Globalization has put engineering education and the profession at a challenging crossroad. The impact of rapid technological innovations on modern societies has been amplified by the globalization of the economy. The competitiveness of the U.S., which is linked to our standard of living, is dependent on our ability to produce a large number of sufficiently innovative engineers prepared to address issues related to complex systems. Hence, our focus is on the research and development of instructional activities that address the engineering competencies related to innovation. Engineering educators and practitioners have suggested that collaborative-competitive team design events promote innovation. These competitions are popular, and they attract sponsors and participants. Beyond being popular, they are believed to provide rich learning opportunities for students. The University of Oklahoma’s Formula SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) Racing team is highly ranked in the U.S. and world. We are in the early stages of designing, implementing, and testing a four course curriculum, around the FSAE race car, that fosters meaningful learning, innovation, systems level thinking, and the attainment of career-sustaining skills as a result of authentic experiences. We plan to identify the activity features that match with the theoretical frameworks of innovation, match them to the professional competencies, translate the events from extracurricular to curricular activities, and assess their effects on student learning and development in four technical courses our curriculum. With a view to stimulating discussion, in this paper, we highlight some of the salient features of our plan and some issues that warrant further investigation.


The university is considered one of the engines of growth in a local economy or its market area, since its direct contributions consist of 1) employment of faculty and staff, 2) services to students, and supply chain links vendors, all of which define the University’s Market area. Indirect contributions consist of those agents associated with the university in terms of community and civic events. Each of these activities represent economic benefits to their host communities and can be classified as the economic impact a university has on its local economy and whose spatial market area includes each of the above agents. In addition are the critical links to the University, which can be considered part of its Demand and Supply chain. This paper contributes to the field of Public/Private Impact Analysis, which is used to substantiate the social and economic benefits of cooperating for economic resources. We use Census data on Output of Goods and Services, Labor Income on Salaries, Wages and Benefits, Indirect State and Local Taxes, Property Tax Revenue, Population, and Inter-Industry to measure economic impact (Implan, 2016).


Author(s):  
John Mckiernan-González

This article discusses the impact of George J. Sánchez’s keynote address “Working at the Crossroads” in making collaborative cross-border projects more academically legitimate in American studies and associated disciplines. The keynote and his ongoing administrative labor model the power of public collaborative work to shift research narratives. “Working at the Crossroads” demonstrated how historians can be involved—as historians—in a variety of social movements, and pointed to the ways these interactions can, and maybe should, shape research trajectories. It provided a key blueprint and key examples for doing historically informed Latina/o studies scholarship with people working outside the university. Judging by the success of Sánchez’s work with Boyle Heights and East LA, projects need to establish multiple entry points, reward participants at all levels, and connect people across generations.I then discuss how I sought to emulate George Sánchez’s proposals in my own work through partnering with labor organizations, developing biographical public art projects with students, and archiving social and cultural histories. His keynote address made a back-and-forth movement between home communities and academic labor seem easy and professionally rewarding as well as politically necessary, especially in public universities. 


Author(s):  
Nham Phong Tuan ◽  
Nguyen Ngoc Quy ◽  
Nguyen Thi Thanh Huyen ◽  
Hong Tra My ◽  
Tran Nhu Phu

The objective of this study is to investigate the impact of seven factors causing academic stress on students of University of Economics and Business - Vietnam National University: Lack of leisure time, Academic performance, Fear of failure, Academic overload, Finances, Competition between students, Relationships with university faculty. Based on the results of a practical survey of 185 students who are attending any courses at the University of Economics and Business - Vietnam National University, the study assesses the impact of stress factors on students. The thesis focuses on clarifying the concept of "stress" and the stress level of students, while pointing out its negative effects on students. This study includes two cross-sectional questionnaire surveys. The first survey uses a set of 16 questions to assess students’ perceptions and attitudes based on an instrument to measure academic stress - Educational Stress Scale for Adolescents (ESSA). The second survey aims to test internal consistency, the robustness of the previously established 7-factor structure. Henceforth, the model was brought back and used qualitatively, combined with Cronbach’s Alpha measurement test and EFA discovery factor analysis. This study was conducted from October 2019 to December 2019. From these practical analyzes, several proposals were made for the society, the school and the students themselves.


2019 ◽  
Vol 118 (11) ◽  
pp. 303-312
Author(s):  
Jamal Asad Mezel ◽  
Adnan Fadhil Khaleel ◽  
Kiran Das Naik Eslavath

This empirical study show that the impact of all styles was well moderate. The means of effect of all styles were less than 3 out of 5. It means the expected impact of transformational affect upon the all dimensions of the activities, are not expected due to the traditional styles of leadership and the lack of information about the transformational leadership styles which can guide leaders to use such styles in the organization which may be this results due to lack of trained leaders and necessary knowledge with the leaders in all universities about transformational styles the traditional form of the leadership styles which used by the university leaders affect the communication between all levels of the administration and the faculty members which has consequence because decrease in motivation and a self-consideration from the administration.


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