Category: Podcast

Centers for Teaching and Learning with Mary C. Wright

One of the many ironies about universities are its hiring processes. Universities need good teachers, and so of course they find the best researchers to fill those jobs. It was an understanding of the problematic nature of this approach that led to the creation of various activities in universities designed to assist professors in developing their craft as teachers. This in turn led to a more sophisticated understanding of teaching as merely the complement of learning, and from there it

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Building the Future: Inside Qatar Foundation’s Vision for Education and Innovation

Change of plan today. I was supposed to be interviewing Mary C. Wright about her new book on Centres for Teaching and Learning. However, a scheduling issue arose, so we took the show on the road, around the world, to a place that maybe doesn’t get discussed enough. The city of Doha in Qatar. Thirty years ago, the Emir of Qatar, Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani and his wife, Sheikha Moza, created the Qatar Foundation. Among the Foundation’s most important

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What a Second Trump Presidency Could Mean for US Higher Education with Brendan Cantwell

Hi everyone. I’m Alex Usher, and this is the World of Higher Education Podcast. This fall, much of the world’s attention is focused on the United States, where Vice President Kamala Harris is squaring off with former President Donald Trump in the presidential election on November 5th. Education was one piece of the government apparatus where Trump 1. 0 was not actually all that radical. Yes, he appointed Betsy DeVos, a passionate advocate for private education and voucher schemes, to

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Rhetoric and Realities: The Evolution of UK Higher Education with Nick Hillman

Hi everyone. I’m Alex Usher and this is The World of Higher Education Podcast. Higher education in the United Kingdom — and more specifically England — is in notably perilous financial shape. A quick glance at the London papers suggests that one or more institutions may be on the verge of a financial collapse. The culprits? A funding regime that has allowed funding to erode with inflation every year since 2012, and a mostly Brexit-related collapse in international student numbers. Sort

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Higher Education in a Polarized World with Simon Marginson

Welcome back to our third season of this podcast on global higher education affairs.  If like many of our fans you consume this podcast as text, you probably won’t notice much change.  But if you’re actually watching me right now, you’ll know that we have made the jump from audio to video.  It’s an absolutely naked attempt to tap into youtube and its larger audiences.  We hope you like the format change.  At the start of a new season it’s always a

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