Highlights from the world of IARU for the year 2011.
November 2011 – Conclusions of the 7th IARU Senior Officers’ Meeting
IARU Senior Officers and representatives were hosted in Canberra by the Australian National University for the 7th Meeting of IARU Senior Officers. Highlights of the meeting included robust discussions on the Sustainable Campus Initiative by Mr. Bart Meehan (ANU) and the HR & Benchmarking initiative where its lead Mr. Indi Seehra (Cambridge) joined us via teleconference for the updates. Senior Officers also heard from Ms. Caroline Smith from Skills Australia on issues related to future workforce planning and necessary skills for fresh graduates in Australia.
The Global Summer Program (GSP) continues to do well. The course line-up for 2012 will be launched on this website on 9 January, and will feature a suite of sustainability themed courses in addition to the regular offering of specialized and multidisciplinary courses. Other than the GSP, students can also consider IARU’s internship offerings as well as participate in an Academic Tournament conducted online (the Global Cross Disciplinary Tournament, or GXT).
New proposals and plans were also approved which included the convening of IARU Research Administrators’ (hosted by KU) as well as University Librarians (hosted by NUS). IARU’s first Graduate Student Conference will be organized by NUS’ Global Asian Institute on 28 – 29 June 2012 featuring six themes: Ageing, Asian Cities, Health, Life-cycle Financing, System Dynamics and Comparative Asian Studies.
Overall, IARU has 16 active initiatives categorized under Global Education Initiatives, Institutional Joint Working, Research and a Grand Challenge. In keeping with its strategy as a small but closely knit Alliance, IARU will continue to focus on providing unique educational programs, focusing on tackling Grand Challenges such as Campus Sustainability and encouraging benchmarking initiatives for universities that are research-intensive in nature.
September 2011 – Global Summer Program
IARU’s Global Summer Program (GSP) has just concluded another successful season, its fourth. 19 courses were conducted at various campuses including field trips to locations around Southeast Asia and Costa Rica, attended by 284 students from all ten IARU member institutions. Once again, students shared that the program was successful due to the rigorous nature of GSP courses, as well as the opportunity to participate in peer learning alongside students from the other IARU institutions, making the group a highly diversified mix of international students.
At the end of the GSP cycle, coordinators will meet to discuss and audit the program, taking into account feedback and the experiences of our students and faculty for next year’s program. This year, GSP coordinators will meet for the fifth time in Copenhagen on 17 – 18 October. A key item on the agenda is to discuss the future of GSP and the progress of the education initiative which is a flagship initiative of the Alliance.
The Alliance is also looking forward to its seventh annual Senior Officers’ Meeting held on 24 – 25 October at the Australian National University in Canberra. Senior officers will hear and discuss the developments of various IARU initiatives, in particular on Campus Sustainability led by Mr. Bart Meehan (ANU), as well as recently conducted workshops for Leadership Best Practice and Integrated Services. This close knit Alliance will also discuss higher education issues and have the opportunity to collectively examine “the Future of Work/Careers” and how it might impact the delivery of undergraduate education.