Educational Experts
September 2006
From September 25 - 29, 2006, fifteen German university leaders and decision-makers at higher education ministries in the German Länder traveled to California for a five-day higher education management seminar. The Fulbright Educational Experts Seminar 2006 took off in San Francisco where the German consulate hosted an introduction to U.S. higher education: decision-making processes, models of governance, leadership structures, and higher education trends in California. During their site-visits to the California State University at East Bay, the private University of San Francisco, the public University of California at Berkeley, and the private Stanford University, the participants were offered the opportunity to observe management operations in action, learnt about the responsibilities of U.S. university leaders , the role of the university governing boards, student recruitment and admission -- and how each of the universities visited fulfills different functions and responsibilities in its respective community and in U.S. higher education and research at large. That for many years to come our universities will not be able to compete with the elite research performed at Berkeley or Stanford the visitors from Germany knew beforehand. But they noted with great interest, that many U.S. universities have instead chosen to excel in teaching and educating young talent for the work force and with a wide array of continuing education options are very successfully responding to the ever increasing need for life-long learning in a knowledge-based society. The experts wondered if such a "mission" might not serve those German universities well which will not be able to turn into one of our research centers of excellence.
