Earlier this month, ACE’s Philip Rogers and Brad Farnsworth travelled to Berlin, Germany, to attend the British Council’s 2019 Going Global conference.
The Going Global conference aims to bring
together higher education leaders from around the world to share ideas,
make connections, and discuss the future of higher education. This
year’s theme revolved around knowledge diplomacy and the digital world.
Rogers, ACE senior vice president of learning and engagement, spoke at a panel titled “The Educational Divide and Can Our Universities Mend the Fractured Connection With Stakeholders?”
The panel addressed the rise of populism in Europe and the United
States and how the higher education community can start to heal the
growing distrust between universities and local communities.
“Higher education’s value proposition is
dependent on a sustained institutional commitment to equity and
inclusion. Colleges and universities can and should do more to be better
and more visible champions of equity, access, completion, and
ultimately social mobility,” Rogers suggested in his opening remarks. He
pointed to the work ACE, with the help of the Lumina Foundation, has been doing to globalize the discussion on race and ethnicity in higher education.
Issues such as retaining the trust of
stakeholders and promoting diversity and inclusion are not unique to the
U.S. higher education landscape. Many institutions from various
countries around the world are facing the same challenges.
“It is vitally important for ACE to be part
of these global conversations,” said Farnsworth, vice president of
internationalization and global engagement. “Conferences like ‘Going
Global’ give us an opportunity to learn from other countries, and they
in turn learn from the U.S. experience. Everyone benefits from the
exchange.”
This was merely the first of several
international trips that these two ACE senior leaders have lined up. In
June, Rogers will speak at the Global Forum
hosted by the Council of Europe and other partners in Strasbourg,
France. Also that month, Farnsworth will head to Beijing, China, to meet
with Chinese higher education leaders and attend an academic conference
on intellectual property.