Cantor visits Europe to attend higher education conference
Syracuse University Chancellor Nancy Cantor is attending an international conference on higher education in Strasbourg, France, today and Friday.
The conference, titled ‘Converging Competences: Diversity, Higher Education, and Sustainable Democracy,’ will discuss the role universities all over the world play in local, national and global communities. It is hosted by the Council of Europe and the U.S. Steering Committee of the International Consortium for Higher Education, Civic Responsibility and Democracy.
‘The world is in need of more unity and recognition of complex problems,’ Cantor said. ‘Universities can’t just be ivory towers anymore.’
At the conference, Cantor will talk about her experience with Scholarship in Action, using it as an example of connecting a university with a community.
Cantor was chosen to attend the conference particularly because of her work at SU, said Ira Harkavy, one of the people responsible for the conference and a professor at the University of Pennsylvania
‘Scholarship in Action is a model for universities nationwide and internationally,’ Harkavy said.
Students must understand the deep ties between the school and the community, said Caryn McTighe Musil, one of the people who put together the American group headed to the conference.
The conference will focus on making a student’s education more about interacting with the community, said McTighe Musil, a senior vice president of the Association of American Colleges and Universities. Education in the future should try and prepare students to be responsible both personally and socially, she added.
‘It matters what you do with your knowledge,’ she said.
Cantor said she hopes the conference will allow people from different backgrounds to share their ideas, and what has and hasn’t worked for them at their respective universities. She wants to bring back to campus new ideas and ways of thinking, she said.
The conference participants will be able to form a network, making it easy to stay in touch with one another and share ideas in the future, McTighe Musil said.
‘We can learn from each other,’ she said.
Published on October 1, 2008 at 12:00 pm
