Ben Wildavsky, a senior fellow in research and policy at the Kauffman Foundation and author of The Great Brain Race: How Global Universities Are Reshaping the World, is giving a free public talk titled “The Great Brain Race: Rise of the Global Education Marketplace” on Monday, January 31, 2:30-4:30 p.m., in the Wisconsin Idea Room (Room 159) of the Education Building. Wildavsky has worked as a journalist and educational policy consultant, and remains in close touch with academia. He visits campus under the auspices of the Global Studies in Higher Education (GSHE) initiative.
The Division of International Studies, together with campus partners Global Studies and the School of Journalism & Mass Communication have successfully recruited this popular speaker and author for a one-day engagement.
About Ben Wildavsky
Ben Wildavsky is a senior fellow in research and policy at the Kauffman Foundation. He is the author of The Great Brain Race: How Global Universities Are Reshaping the World (Princeton University Press, 2010), and co-editor of Reinventing Higher Education: The Promise of Innovation, forthcoming in 2011 from Harvard Education Press. Before joining the Kauffman Foundation in 2006, Wildavsky was education editor of U.S. News & World Report, where he was the top editor of America’s Best Colleges and America’s Best Graduate Schools. Before joining U.S. News, he was budget, tax, and trade correspondent for the National Journal, higher education reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle, and executive editor of Public Interest. His articles and reviews have also appeared in the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and many other publications. He also blogs for the Chronicle of Higher Education’s new global edition.
As a consultant to national education reformers, he has written several influential reports, including the September 2006 report of the Secretary of Education’s Commission on the Future of Higher Education.
In addition to numerous media appearances, he has spoken to audiences at Google, the Economist’s Human Potential conference, Harvard, Berkeley, the London School of Economics, the Committee for Economic Development, and many other venues.
Wildavsky graduated from Yale University (Phi Beta Kappa, summa cum laude). He has been a media fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and a visiting fellow at Israel’s Shalem Center. He is currently a guest scholar at the Brookings Institution.
About the GSHE Distinguished Speaker Series:
Throughout the 2011 spring semester, GSHE will host additional speakers on issues in global higher education. The 2011 Global Studies in Higher Education’s Distinguished Speaker Series will include upcoming guests:
John Douglass: “What the U.S. Should Do To Be a More Active Higher Education Global Player,” February 28, 4:00-5:30 p.m., Room 336, Ingraham Hall.
Douglass is a senior research fellow at the Center for Studies in Higher Education (CSHE) at the University of California–Berkeley, and is currently a visiting professor at the University of Campinas (Brazil). His research interests encompass the student experience in research universities, the role of universities in economic development, science policy as a component of national and multinational economic policy, the evolving role of mass higher education in society, and the influence of globalization.
Sheila Slaughter: “Transatlantic Moves to the Market,” March 28, 4:00-5:30 p.m., Room 336, Ingraham Hall.
Slaughter earned her Ph.D. from UW–Madison, and now serves as the Louise McBee Professor of Higher Education at the Institute of Higher Education at the University of Georgia. Her scholarship concentrates on the relationship between knowledge and power as it plays out in higher education policy at the state, federal, and global levels.
Patti McGill Peterson: “Liberal Education in Global Perspective,” April 11, Room 336, Ingraham Hall.
Peterson holds master’s and doctoral degrees from UW–Madison, and is currently a senior associate at the Institute for Higher Education Policy (IHEP), Washington, D.C. She speaks and publishes widely on the subjects of the United States and international higher education and public policy as it relates to higher education and third-sector organizations. Her expertise includes college and university administration, governance, and academic program development.
Global Studies in Higher Education is a collaborative venture of Global Studies, the Department of Educational Policy Studies, and the Division of International Studies. Established to examine the evolving role of a public research university, GSHE operates as an interdisciplinary hub of university administrators, scholars, researchers, and students, and of partners and leaders outside the university. It contributes to UW–Madison’s strengths by considering global change and local impacts in comparative perspective and by creating a forum where participants meet, cross-fertilize, discuss solutions, and generate new intellectual resources and wealth. The project is led by Amy Stambach, assistant dean of the Division of International Studies and professor of Educational Policy Studies, and Gilles Bousquet, vice provost for globalization and dean of the Division of International Studies.
Besides the Distinguished Speaker Series, GSHE also offers opportunities for faculty, staff, and students to engage in discussion of global higher education through a reading group and the International and Comparative Education Research Group (ICERG), which both meet on monthly basis. For more information about the spring speakers, activities, and courses related to GSHE, please visit the project website http://gshe.global.wisc.edu/
Pauline Zhu, Division of International Studies