Jason Lane, Professor of International Education and special advisor to the President at the University of Illinois, Director of the Institute for Leadership and Governance in Higher Education, and co-founder of the Cross Border Education Research Team, tells us how he entered into the international education space through an initial interest in international affairs when he was back in high school and took part of the Model United Nations. As an academic his initial focus on the governance of higher education in US led him to look at branch campus overseas and the associated geopolitics.
Jason shares his concerns about the current shifting geopolitical dynamics, associated with a realignment of states and a move away from cooperation and open borders. He reflects on the consequences of anti-immigration policies for the financial viability of higher education providers in the US, and how this might incentivise a growth in TNE provision, like we are seeing for the UK and Australia. We reflect on the US predominant approach to TNE, based on branch campuses and study abroad activity, and on how more countries are opening up to TNE as receiving or sending countries, we share similar experiences of getting lost on the way back from Nottingham Ningbo,… and Jason recall his memorable experiences of setting up the CBERT with Kevin Kinser and joining as a young academic the OECD International Management in Higher Education programme in Paris .