Extremely thoughtful and fresh piece from Mahmoud Mamdani, Director of the Institute for Development Studies at Makerere University courtesy of Prof. Shahrzad Mobjab of University of Toronto.

Friends,

1. This forum was the best one that I have seen so far on this topic.  Noted that there are 15,000 higher education institutions.  Not only is there an obsession over the top 100 (my university would say top 200 as it falls within that range), but, what in fact is being ranked ? what does this tell us about the roles played and the potential for higher education to make a critical contribution to issues of citizen engagement, community based economies, social and political inclusion, sustainability, cognitive justice and knowledge democracy?

GA has set up a facebook page that anyone and everyone can post items to and make comments.  Thanks to Nirmala Lall for taking the initiative.  

Dear Friends,

Many of you will recall the exciting International Conference on Community-University Engagement that the University of Science, Malaysia (USM) organized in November of 2009.  One of the outcomes of that event was the creation of the Asia Pacific University-Community Engagement Network. Dr. Susie See Ching May is the Deputy Vice-Chancellor at USM with the responsibility for the further development of this network.  

Dear Friends ,

Our colleagues at the Global University Network for Innovation (GUNI) have asked all of us to share information within our various CU netorks about the poll that they have developed as part of the research on higher education and sustainability they has been conducting over the last year.

The poll seeks to gather information from around the world about the actions universities can take to foster their commitments to sustainability.