Fighting for Harmony - students, society and the academy in tune
EAIR Forum Vilnius 2009, Vilnius, Lithuania, 23-26 August 2009
On each day of the Forum, a plenary keynote address will be given on one of the main Forum themes.
Sunday 23 August, 18:45 - 19:15 hrs.
Professor Marius Povilas Saulauskas and Professor Alfredas Bumblauskas.
Place: Old campus - St. John's Church
The first keynote of the Forum will be given by two historians of Vilnius University: Professor Marius Povilas Saulauskas and Professor Alfredas Bumblauskas. The title of their opening address is 'The Threefold Step of Academia Europeana: a Case of Universitas Vilnensis'.
Marius Povilas Saulauskas is professor and the Head of Department of Logic and History of Philosophy, Vilnius University, Lithuania. He is associate professor of Philosophy and Social Theory, Vilnius University, Lithuania, and the Director of Information Society Study Center that offers several Master courses for students, works on expertise and various academic projects.
Marius Povilas Saulauskas is a well known publisher and an esteemed speaker. For several years he has dealt with the development of university academic system in a historical context and within an international perspective.
Alfredas Bumblauskas is professor and Vice-dean of the Faculty of History. He is an esteemed historian who has edited several Lithuanian books: 'Historiography and the Open Society' (1998), 'Vilnius University 1957-1999' and other. He has created the conception of History instruction at secondary schools; he has also initiated and reorganised the reform of History studies.
Monday 24 August, 09:00 - 09:45 hrs.
Lesley Wilson
Place: Old campus - St. John's Church
Lesley Wilson will give the Monday morning Forum keynote address. The title of her presentation is 'The policy of Higher Education in Europe'.
Lesley Wilson is Secretary General of the European University Association (EUA) and editor of the Bologna Handbook. She joined EUA at its creation in 2001 and formally took over as Secretary General in 2002. Previous to this she held a number of senior positions in higher education and research management at European level, in particular as Director of UNESCO's European Centre for Higher Education in Bucharest (UNESCO-CEPES) from 1995 to late 1999, Head of the newly established Science Policy Unit at the European Science Foundation in Strasbourg (1994/1995) and Director of the EC TEMPUS Office in Brussels from 1990 to 1994.
Lesley Wilson is a graduate of the University of Glasgow and the Institut des Hautes Etudes Européennes at the University of Strasbourg she spent her early career as a scientific staff member of the German Science Council in Cologne before moving to Brussels in 1988 to join the newly established ERASMUS Bureau.
Tuesday 25 August, 09:00 - 09:45 hrs.
Professor Andrejs Rauhvargers
Place: Old campus - St. John's Church
Professor Andrejs Rauhvargers is the third keynote speaker in Vilnius and his keynote is entitled 'Achieving Bologna goals: where does Europe stands before 2010'.
Andrejs Rauhvargers is Secretary General of the Latvian Rectors' Council and professor of education management at the University of Latvia. Since 1994 he has been internationally active in the field of recognition of foreign qualifications. He has served as President of the ENIC network (1997-2002) and as President of the Lisbon Convention Committee (2001-2007) and has written a number of publications in the field of recognition and various aspects of the Bologna Process. He has been co-editor of several volumes of the Council of Europe Higher Education Series.
Andrejs Rauhvargers is member of Bologna Follow-up Group (BFUG) since 1999 and has been active in implementing the Bologna Process reforms in Latvia. From 2005-2007 he chaired the BFUG Bologna Process Stocktaking Working Group, which prepared the Stocktaking report for the Bologna London ministerial conference in 2007, and is currently appointed to chair the preparation of next Stocktaking report for the ministerial conference in Leuven in 2009.
Wednesday 26 August, 09:00 - 09:45 hrs.
Kari Hyppönen
Place: Old campus - St. John's Church
On the last day of the Forum, Kari Hyppönen will give his presidential address entitled 'EAIR in a Changing World: EAIR forever?' After his presentation Kari Hyppönen will answer questions from the audience.
Kari Hyppönen is the current President of EAIR and Director of Administration. He was Chairman of the BSRUN Steering Committee 2008, EAIR Forum Chair in 1993, Member of the EAIR Programme Committee in 1996 and Member of the Programme Committee of 7th International Scientific Conference in 2009.
Fighting for Harmony - students, society and the academy in tune
EAIR Forum Vilnius 2009, Vilnius, Lithuania, 23-26 August 2009
The EAIR Forum is about meeting and listening to each other. The Forum is constructed around a daily plenary and parallel sessions organised in seven tracks and poster presentations, all connected to the main theme of the Forum. They will take place in Old campus of Vilnius University: Senate Hall, Theatre Hall, Seminar Room I-II, Aula Parva and one lecture room (Faculty of History).
Abstracts, Outlines & Articles
On the webpage Abstracts you will find an index of the names of Authors and Co-Authors who will present a paper in Vilnius at the Forum. You will find the title of their presentation and the abstract for all to read.
The outlines will be accessible by the use of a participant's password only. For the outlines, please consult the webpage Outlines.
After the Forum, full articles as background to the presentations will be published on the webpage Articles. These articles are free for all participants attending the EAIR Forum and accessible by using a participant's password.
Keywords & Categories
Presenters were asked to add 'keywords' and 'categories' in their proposal describing the content and character of their paper in order to help participants to identify the presentations. These keywords and categories are added to the abstracts in the final Forum Programme. They will also be posted on the EAIR website.
Poster Presentations
During the entire Forum posters will be on display, giving succinct descriptions of higher education problems and case studies.
Tracks
Some of the tracks will run in parallel at the same room (track 3 and track 8; track 5 and track 7) each one half a day. Please notice that Track 5 and Track 7 will have a joint session as well.
Track 1 - Quality culture: looking beyond the current models
Place: Aula Parva
Track Chair: Jon Haakstad • Norwegian Agency for Quality Assurance in Education (NOKUT) • Oslo • Norway
Systematic quality assurance in higher education has come of age with the establishing of QA agencies in the European countries and the adoption of the European Standards and Guidelines. As the Track title indicates, there are, however, still questions to be asked and problems to be investigated, one of these being whether European quality assurance is now becoming too standardised; too ritualised and bureaucratised?
Is the overall concern with securing acceptable standards replacing the motivation to improve from within? What is the proper level of external control with autonomous institutions? How well do current QA procedures actually support efforts to improve the learning (and teaching) processes that take place inside the "black box" of the classroom and auditorium? External QA has moved from using peers to using experts, although presumably they are the same people. What does this signify, and what are the consequences?
Track 2 - Where does the power of governance reside?
Place: Senate Hall
Track Chair: Dennis Farrington • South East European University • Republic of Macedonia
Issues of governance are centred to ongoing debate about change in higher education. At the heart of this debate are questions of academic freedom, institutional autonomy and accountability to governments or other stakeholders. Relationships between state and university are evolving and are also subject to influence by trans-national organisations. Within higher education institutions, new models of governance are emerging. Forms of leadership and management are changing, normally in response to external pressures, with significant consequences for decision-making and responsibility within institutions. This track will focus on approaches to governance and questions of power, at all levels, international, national and within institutions.
Track 3 - Leadership and Administration
Place: Seminar Room I (shares with track 8)
Track Chair: Saulius Vengris • Vilnius Academy of Arts • Lithuania
Due to the gap between the present state of the higher education institutions and the present and future expectations of society regarding them, development of leadership qualities is topical. Track 3 intends to discuss general problems of leadership development, including determination of a competence profile of administrators, selection of potential administrators, continuous training of intended leaders, keeping leadership sustainable. Special attention should be paid to potential obstacles developing future leaders. For example, possible dangers may originate if a group of university leaders pursue their own interests rather than the interest of the academic society or the society in general.
Track 3 encompasses cultural change due to the leadership development as well. To this end, it is essential to receive reliable feedback on whether the undertaken development of leadership has resulted in behavioural changes in the organisations.
Track 4 - Expectations: students - higher education institutions - society
Place: Theatre Hall
Track Chair: Sakari Ahola • University of Turku • Finland
Higher education institutions face ever growing expectations. Students coming from varied backgrounds and having a wide range of experiences have high, diverse and even contradictory expectations. The trends towards marketisation and academic capitalism emphasise the role of students as customers, and the spreading of fees boosts thinking in terms of value-for-money. Is there any room for expectations of HEIs towards students, and what might they be?
On the other hand, the society at large, governments and national policy makers demand accessibility, transparency and accountability. Globalisation of the higher education market and the escalating quest for "world class" university generates institutional convergence while development in the knowledge-based society and the labour markets presupposes diversified forms of curricula and delivery. Is this emphasis on quality and top performance challenging the traditional ideas of equality? Track 4 explores the ways to meet, to cope with and even to master these expectations.
Track 5 - Navigating the jungle of learning "paradigms"
Place: Seminar Room II (shares with track 7)
Track Chair: Richard Thorn • Institutes of Technology Ireland • Dublin • Ireland
In half a generation a whole new lexicon, and accompanying acronyms, has appeared in higher education institutions to replace the simple notion of "lecturing". Discussions on TLA (teaching, learning and assessment), S and M (semesterisation and modularisation) and VLE's (virtual learning environments) have accompanied an increasing emphasis on learning outcomes rather than detailed syllabus contents. In turn, flexible delivery, on-line learning, blended learning and e-learning approaches to programme delivery have resulted in a student cohort that is increasingly fragmented and distanced from the lecture hall.
This Track will explore the issues surrounding these radical transformations, in particular as they have affected the teaching and learning process as it affects students. Contributions should consider these changes in the context of the initial design of the programmes, and whether, given the inexorable march of modularisation, coherent programmes do indeed exist any longer, through delivery design and ultimately evaluation of performance of students.
Please notice that tracks 5 and 7 will have a joint session.
Track 6 - Research management in higher education
Place: Room 211 (Faculty of History)
Track Chair: Liudvika Leisyte • University of Twente • the Netherlands/Lithuania
In knowledge societies, research is considered crucially important for society's well-being. In a rapidly changing competitive world the European Union, national governments and higher education institutions are strategically rethinking their research policies. Over the last few years, the policies have emphasized excellence, relevance and innovation. Higher levels of research productivity, continued high-level discoveries on the frontiers of knowledge, and better applicability of existing knowledge are expected but must be realised under harsh conditions such as restricted budgets and high levels of accountability of higher education institutions. The institutions have in turn strengthened their research management capacities in part due to the policies geared towards efficiency and effectiveness. This has often meant introducing institutional research management mechanisms and new roles of academics. In this multi-level context the "management of knowledge" becomes increasingly complex and multi-layered. While the stakes are high, the challenges are manifold.
Track 7 - The Bermuda triangle in Bologna implementation
Place: Seminar Room II (shares with track 5)
Track Chair: Johanna Witte • Bavarian State Institute for HE Research & Planning • Munich • Germany
Something seems to have gone lost - or at least profoundly changed - in the Bologna process on the way from the European vision to national policy formulation, from there to institutional policies and ultimately to implementation within departments. Perceptions of the process vary widely between different stakeholders, as becomes visible e.g. when comparing the stocktaking results and reports such as "Bologna with student eyes".
This Track provides a forum for exploring issues of transformation and translation, misunderstanding and reinterpretation, dispute and questioning, critique and reformulation of the Bologna process at all levels from the European to the departmental. It wants to make visible the existing diversity of national and institutional interpretations of the Bologna process and search for answers how the process can move ahead beyond 2010 in light of this diversity. It also asks for examples - good and bad practices - how national legislation influences implementation at institutional level, and how conflicts between the various levels are being dealt with.
Please notice that tracks 5 and 7 will have a joint session.
Track 8 - Ethics in higher education
Place: Seminar Room I (shares with track 3)
Track Chair: Nynke Jo Smit • Institute of Social Studies • The Hague • the Netherlands
Ethics in higher education is a new Track in the EAIR-Forum, although it is very much in the heart of our every day work. Ethics is often associated with the "false notes" in the harmony: fraud, plagiarism, corruption, diploma mills, pressure to adjust data. We should not disregard them; especially as modern technology (mobile phones, internet) has enlarged the possibilities for fraud and cheating.
We welcome contributions ranging from practical and innovative solutions to deal with these issues, as well as theoretical discussions on the place of research ethics in the curriculum and examples of 'practice what you preach'.
