scholarly journals Sullied: The Albanian Student Movement of December 1990

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arjan Shahini

The study analyzes the beginning of the Albanian student movement of December 1990 from a historical–sociological and comparative perspective. This historical interpretation of various sources (newspaper articles, activists’ memoirs, interviews, and archival documents) draws its theoretical arguments from social movement studies, student activism, and the sociology of higher education. The study offers a complex explanation of the role of the movement during the country’s democratic transition by also looking at similar cases. Considerations of the broader international and local implications, the role of the university, the academic staff, and the student organization all are accounted for. After tracing the repertoires of strategies and content of the movement to the Albanian Cultural Revolution of the 1960s, the study argues that student activism benefitted from the structural opportunities provided by changes introduced in higher education during the historical sequence of late Socialism.

2018 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 169-188
Author(s):  
Emmanuel Asiedu-Acquah

This paper looks at student political activism in Ghana in the late 1950s and 1960s. Using Ghanaian and British archives, it examines how students of Ghana’s universities politically engaged with the government of Kwame Nkrumah and his ruling Convention People’s Party (CPP). Student activism manifested most in the conflict between the Nkrumah government, on one hand, and university authorities and students, on the other hand, over the purpose of higher education, university autonomy, and nationalism. The conflict coalesced around the idea of educated youth as model citizens. Contrary to the denial in existing literature, the paper argues that a nascent student movement and tradition of student political activism had emerged since the late 1950s. University student activism established itself as a fulcrum of the country’s evolving postcolonial political order and a bulwark against governmental authoritarianism. In the larger context of the global 1960s, Ghanaian student activism belonged to the wave of youth protests against governments that favored stability and opposed all dissent.


Author(s):  
David Deggs

Student activism is mostly thought of as an activity that engages and motivates the traditional-aged students in American higher education to action. The emergence of student activism in the 1960s occurred when enrollment in American higher education was still primarily limited to youth from middle- and upper-class families. The demographics of American higher education have shifted, and the adult learner or non-traditional student now represents a significant amount, if not the majority, of most campus populations. The adult learner brings unique perspective to the higher education classroom based upon their real-world experiences that directly impacts their values, beliefs, and ideas about societal issues. Adult learners in American higher education have the potential to change the ways, means, and longstanding outcomes related to activism in American higher education.


Author(s):  
Abby L. Bjornsen-Ramig ◽  
Daniel B. Kissinger

Activism on college campuses in the United States is a long-standing phenomenon rooted in the counterculture movements of the 1960s. Today, local, regional, and national issues and sociopolitical influences remain closely aligned with activism in higher education, with contemporary issues shaping student activism efforts on campus. College student activism ranges from organized marches and protests to more widespread social media campaigns, targeting issues ranging from inclusion and diversity to sexual assault and intimate partner violence. Involvement in activism can influence the mental health and overall wellness of college students who engage in these activities. This chapter focuses on contemporary activism in higher education, specifically as related to the potential impact of activism on the mental health and wellness of college student activists. Also discussed are implications for student affairs professionals, university-based mental health professionals, and higher education administrators.


2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 279 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Wagenaar

The competence and learning outcomes approach, which intends to improve effective performance of academic staff and students, is becoming dominant in today’s higher education. This was quite different 15 years ago. This contribution aims to offer insight in the reforms initiated and implemented, by posing and answering the questions why the time was appropriate — by identifying and analysing the underlying conditions — and in what way the change was shaped — by focusing on terminology required and approaches developed. Central here is the role the Tuning project — launched in 2000-2001 — played in this respect. The contribution starts with contextualising the situation in the 1990s: the recession and growing unemployment in many European countries on the one hand and the development of a global society and the challenges the higher educational sector faced at the other. It offers the background for initiating the Tuning project, and the discourse on which its approach is based. In particular, attention is given to choosing the concept of competences, distinguishing subject specific and general/generic ones, as an integrating approach of knowledge, understanding, skills, abilities and attitudes. The approach should serve as a means of integrating a number of main goals as part of the learning and teaching process: strengthening employability and preparing for citizenship besides personal development of the student as a basis for the required educational reform. Tuning’s unique contribution is the alignment of this concept to learning outcomes statements as indicators of competence development and achievement and by relating both concepts to profiling of educational programmes.


Author(s):  
Stephen J. Nelson

This chapter explores the defining events and leaders in American higher education during the past 75 years. Special attention is directed at the defining events and leaders of the 1960s and 1970s that have shaped so much of the current landscape of higher education. The chapter begins by exploring the idea of a 'career president', a recent trend during the past four or five decades, and includes both influential leaders who have spent significant time at one institution, to those who move to different institutions throughout their career entirely in the role of president. The chapter concludes by offering critical questions about the future of the academy.


2020 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Yaser Hasan Salem Al-Mamary

BACKGROUND: Research on Transformational leadership has received attention among scholars, particularly in the field of management. However, the discussion about this issue in the context of higher education is still limited, particularly in the context of Research Universities in Malaysia. Therefore, this study is conducted to address this gap. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to examine the role of organizational commitment in mediating the relationship between transformational leadership and organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB). METHODS: The study was conducted by a structured survey questionnaire on 250 academic staff in Malaysian public universities (MRUs). Structured Equation Modeling (SEM) via SmartPLS software was utilized to examine study hypothesis. RESULTS: The findings of this study showed that transformational leadership has significant direct effect on organizational commitment and organizational commitment has significant direct effect on OCB. These results highlight the importance of mediating role of organizational commitment in predicting transformational leadership –OCB relationship. CONCLUSIONS: The leaders in Malaysian research universities could utilize these findings by setting up strategies to promote transformational leadership and maximize the feeling of academic staff of being committed; this will enhance citizenship behaviour of academic staff. It adds empirical evidence in the existing literature that organizational commitment has a mediation effects on the relationship between transformational leadership and organizational citizenship behaviour, especially in the Malaysian higher education context.


2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (2/3) ◽  
pp. 133-151 ◽  
Author(s):  
Osama Abdellateef Mah’d

Purpose – The aim of this research is to shed light on the role the Ministry of Higher Education & Scientific Research (MoHE) plays in private Jordanian universities (PJUs). Private universities in developing countries struggle with their financial resources. There is an argument that a decision to adopt a new approach for the financing and management of Jordanian higher education (HE) has been taken because both funding and ownership belong to private sources. However, the MoHE plays a role in the Jordanian context. Design/methodology/approach – This study explains the relations between the MoHE and PJUs and describes the PJUs’ managerial context. It is based on the prior research related to HE and budgeting. A total of 16 budget preparers at 11 universities and a further three in the MoHE were interviewed. The research also uses observation to obtain direct knowledge of the research phenomena. It uses archival documents, guidelines and reports to accomplish the study’s objective. Findings – This research presents an overview for private HE across the world with particular concentration being paid to the role of the MoHE in PJUs by presenting the regulations and laws related to HE in Jordan. It proves that the MoHE uses a budgeting formula to significantly increase its control over the private HE sector. Simultaneously, no government subsidies or tax exemptions (such as those given to public universities) have been made available to private universities. The results indicate that the MoHE controls the private universities by using accreditation tools, such as their budgets. Originality/value – Jordan has a unique situation in terms of the relationship between its MoHE and Jordanian universities.


Author(s):  
Julie Savory

Over the past decade government policy has emphasised the need for effective and active partnerships between employers and higher education providers (DfES, 2003; Wedgewood, 2007; CBI, 2008; BIS, 2009) to meet the requirements of a globalised knowledge economy. This paper discusses the findings from a research project undertaken at the University of Salford which sought to explore how:Personal Development Planning (PDP) input can support the development of employability skills for part-time sponsored students.Employer engagement could be drawn upon to enhance such provision.Informed by the Appreciative Inquiry approach (Cooperrider 1986, cited Reed, 2007), the methodology included a questionnaire survey of two student cohorts and thirteen semi-structured interviews with organisational development managers from sponsoring organisations to explore perceptions of the value of PDP within day release provision and potential benefits to the organisation. A follow up focus group with employers explored further staff development needs and the potential for PDP processes within Higher Education (HE) courses to complement their existing Continuing Professional Development (CPD) and in-house staff and workforce development strategies.Savory, Conroy and Berwick The role of Personal Development Planning (PDP) for employer sponsored studentsThe paper concludes that dialogue between academic staff, students and sponsoring employers is valuable in developing shared understandings of the role of PDP activities within HE curriculum, the potential benefits for individual professional development and the workforce development requirements of organisations. Employers participating in the research stressed the importance of 'functioning knowledge' (Biggs 2003, cited Walsh, 2008) and discussions highlighted the potential for PDP to provide a bridge between the discipline specific knowledge which forms the main focus of HE courses and the trans-disciplinary knowledge produced by the largely informal learning that occurs during the course of professional practice (Gibbons et al., 1964). The joint dialogue enabled exploration of perceptions of the difference between CPD and PDP and identification of how links between PDP and appraisal processes in the workplace could be strengthened, including suggestions for practical activities which could be incorporated into HE programmes and employers' performance review processes.


Author(s):  
Mikhail S. Vorontsov ◽  
Mikhail S. Kishchenkov ◽  
Yuriy S. Nikiforov ◽  
Denis V. Tumakov ◽  
Yaroslav N. Sirotkin

A review of the reports and discussions of the second round table of Yaroslavl's young historians, "The" Lords "of the Golden Ring of Russia," is presented in the article. Soviet regional elites and Moscow at the turning point of events (the 1960s to 1980s) were considered on August 28, 2019 in Ushinsky Yaroslavl State Pedagogic University. The scientific event was devoted to discursive discussions of issues of regional history (the 1960s to 1980s), to identification of problematic places of the scientific project "Soviet regional elites and their interaction with Moscow in the 1960s to 1980s: in archival documents and in historical memory." The purpose of the round table was related to the need to update the regional aspect of Russia 's recent history after 1945. The main attention of the participants of the round table was focused on the issues of relations between regional and central power in the late USSR, on the problem of regional lobbying, on crime in the Soviet province, on communicative practices of local power and Soviet citizens, on the role of oral history in the study of modern history. More than 20 people, including History teachers of schools in the city of Yaroslavl and undergraduates of history faculty of Ushinsky Yaroslavl State Pedagogic University made presentations and participated in discussions.


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