Academia as a league system

In this paper, we explain the stability of top university ranks and discuss attempts to create top national universities. Firstly, it is shown theoretically that in a world with differently-gifted poor and rich students, a three-tier university system may become very stable, with a super league of the best research universities that attract the best students, whether rich or poor. Secondly, it is empirically demonstrated that half of the highest ranked universities enjoy very stable competitive advantages. Thirdly, we examine attempts of China, France and Germany to overcome these disadvantages and to get into this super league. The recent attempt of China to create such super league universities shows the financial and societal costs of these attempts. France demonstrates how the concentration of financial resources on two newly built universities that complement the forces of existing ones—either real or only by labelling—may succeed. Despite the complexly designed and competitive German Excellence Initiative, ongoing since 2004, no German university was among the top 50 in the Shanghai ranking in 2021 (compared to one university in 2004). The mixed results of all these worldwide attempts may reflect the problem that late market entry into the super league may be too costly, given that the classical university business model is in the mature phase of its life cycle.

Exploring Higher Education Pathways for Coping With the Threat of COVID-19: Does Parental Academic Background Matter?

First-generation students (FGS) are more likely to feel misplaced and struggle at university than students with university-educated parents (continuous-generation students; CGS). We assumed that the shutdowns during the Coronavirus-pandemic would particularly threaten FGS due to obstructed coping mechanisms. Specifically, FGS may show lower identification with the academic setting and lower perceived fairness of the university system (system justification). We investigated whether FGS and CGS used different defenses to cope with the shutdown threat in a large sample of German-speaking students (N = 848). Using Structural Equation Modeling, we found that for all students, independent of academic parental background, high levels of system justification were associated with perceiving the learning situation as less threatening, better coping with failure, and less helplessness. However, in comparison to CGS, FGS showed small but significant reductions in system justification and relied more on concrete personal relationships with other students as well as their academic identity to cope with the threatening situation. We discuss implications for helping FGS succeed at university.

Teaching Literature in a Post-Dictatorship Country

Albanian literature curricula in a high school system has incorporated in a few years a lot of concepts, authors and methodology pretending in absorbed and integration of knowledge worldwide on literature teaching process and environment. Analyzing the academic process of constructing the base and the theoretical axis of the teachers, which actually are teaching literature can be noticed easily that a large number of them in their last ten years of their professional carrier has nothing to do with it. Their studies in university stage was only ideologized and focused on socialist realism. The university’s curriculum was strictly handicapped and based on the communist ideology on “creating the new people- the communist one”, as the literature itself, and every art form was “shaped” as it. Being such a teacher nowadays in Albania you have to face a challenge: You feel prejudged by your “experienced” colleges, who has not accepted and never “known” really the perspective of reading a fiction text as a “open text”. You felt yourself “trapped” in textbooks, their sources and their perspective is limited on their authors theoretical backgrounds. Having a parenting and student tradition, mentality as their academic success is based only on “the book” (even if in Albania we have more than 10 years practicing “altertext”-as a possibility of performing the subject program through the book chosen by teachers between three or four possibilities) makes it difficult to provide an “open” experience on learning through a based bibliography. The academic coordinators in pre-university system, aren’t always ready for the teacher who want to realize the teaching process leaded by the ideas of globalization, open minded individual, constructive perspective of the personality of the student, on national history and tradition versus “the other”.

Architecture with childhood. Rethinking and reflecting on public spaces seen through the 8-80 lens

Bringing children closer to the issues of culture and civic education in architecture and critical thinking is essential because only by knowing and enhancing their respective heritages is it possible to appreciate the present and build the future of cities with them and for them, where a city is a place of construction of collective knowledge that encompasses the challenges of sustainability and the objectives of the 2030 Agenda of the United Nations. From SUJ (Jesuit University System) we have a strong commitment to the protection and care of minors and vulnerable people. In recent years, a great effort has been made to move from a culture of protection and care to ensure access to culture to safe environments. The concept of Friendly Cities 8-80is taken up again, based on the premise: If we design the city for an 8-year-old and an 80-year-old, we will have a city that allows coexistence and harmony in a way that fosters equity, stimulates healthy lifestyles, and promotes sustainability for more diverse users. Good public space design including beauty, sustainability, and accessibility are keywords of the new Bauhaus, capable of astonishing, reflecting culture and the values of a community, influencing, or “forcing” people to engage with their daily environment to address the new global challenges of climate change, pollution, and resource scarcity.

“Turkey Will Be a Second France, Unless Our Demands Are Satisfied”: The Turkish Student Movement in the Long 1960s

The transnational phenomenon that was “1968” was felt keenly around the globe with direct and virtually immediate impact. Turkey stands as a clear example, wherein the development and dynamism of the “Western” student movement had an immediate impact and shaped developments unfolding in Turkey at the time. As elsewhere in the world, “1968” did not hit Turkey out of thin air. The “1968 generation,” and the student movement in general, was mainly Kemalist, one of the significant characteristics that differentiated it from others. It first emerged as a student movement focused on reform within the university system, but toward the end of the 1960s, it evolved into a revolutionary movement, eventually deploying revolutionary violence from 1971–72.

Employment Status and Educational Achievements in Universities: Evidence from Southeast Nigeria

Introduction: Educational achievement has remained the common yardstick for assessing human capital development across the world. However, it has been observed that Nigeria is one of the developing countries facing the challenge of low level of academic achievement by employees in the university system, which in turn has grave implications for the overall performance of the Nigerian university system in terms of efficient work delivery. Methods: This study adopts a robust and stratified sampling technique to select 4,122 employees in selected federal universities in the southeast of Nigeria and uses structural questionnaire and binary logistic regression to analyse the effect of employment status on academic achievement in South East Nigeria. Results: The findings show that employment status negatively and significantly influences the academic achievement of employees in Nigerian universities. Discussion: The major focus of this study is to examine the impact of employment status on educational achievement in the universities for southeast, Nigeria. To drive more effective and efficient service delivery in the universities, there is need for adequate salary enhancement for employees in order to motivate them to strive for higher educational attainments. Limitations: The study was carried out in federal universities in Nigeria. It is expected to expand the study to cut across both private, states in Nigeria for effective and efficient comparison among the universities found in southeast geopolitical zones. Conclusion: The study concludes that government should continuously motivate these employees so that they can strive for higher educational attainments.

In Pursuing Better Academic Result In University: A Case of Fuzzy Logic Analysis

A fuzzy logic approach is applied in this proposed system as a method to predict the performance student in pursuing better academic results in university. Fuzzy logic is used because the technique is suitable for statistical database as well as suitable to obtain general classification between excellence and moderate students. The main issue in this project is the difficulties to predict the student’s performance and to sustain their result. The fuzzy logic approach is suitable for data classification and the performance will be analyzed by using Matlab simulink. Besides that, several difference methods of membership were also been investigated in order to design and propose the most stable and reliable system. Based on the results obtained from simulation, it has provided meaningful characteristics that are significant and able to advice student getting better grades in academicals program (BEE & BEP). Moreover, the system will provide better study to student whose do not understand the university system during their early years in university.