Higher Ed: “To Tackle Issues that Take Longer than a Lifetime”

Annual Conference and Expo NAFSA 2016, which took place on May 20-June 3 in Denver, has come to the end. As hundreds of their colleagues from 140 countries, Russian educators represented national universities at the Russian Pavilion. This year the conference united 9,400 higher ed experts, provosts and heads of university ranking portals. David Brooks, NY Times columnist and social activist who made an enthusiastic and inspiring speech at the opening ceremony, announced that global education is not only curriculum planning and budget issues. Higher ed’s mission is also about complicated moral aspects and responsibility to young people who will rebuild our world in future.

NAFSA 2016`s motto “Building capacity for global learning” leads to think about conditions required for providing effective education network, which covers the whole world consisting of dissimilar parts. International educators will not complete this challenge without being in contact with each other. That is why every year NAFSA attracts experts, officials, sponsors and volunteers who make this event happen. It goes without saying that in the time of misunderstandings and conflicts that always make our lives difficult and unstable,someone has to focus on building a peaceful world and look for features that unite rather than separate us.

Traditionally NAFSA has two main tracks: international education exposition and professional learning hub. The Expo is a place where universities, government agencies, recruiting agencies and ranking portals share their services, products and programs. Each organization has its own booth at which it presents information brochures and souvenirs. Russian Academic Excellence Project “5-100” organized its location in the very center of the expo hall. “Top Universities” included booths of 21 Russian universities, core members of “5-100” Project. In evenings participants gave welcome parties for international colleagues so as to represent their countries and make new contacts. The informal atmosphere makes these meetings fruitful and interesting. The professional learning track includes hundreds of sessions, poster fairs, plenary meetings and partner events. It is led by honored speakers famous for their contribution to international education and who delivered lectures on such issues as state support of higher ed, student integration problems, internationalization strategies, recruiting policy, brand building and budget affairs.

NAFSA 2016 would be less impressive and meaningful without David Brooks who explained why things one says are not what one is teaching, because education process contains invisible but core aims that are impossible to forget. Mr. Brooks, who also teaches students using his experience and examples from classical literature, urged delegates to think about a deeper inner life and about how it really affects the world, turning it into the best place to live. According to David Brooks, international education is a way to gain global experience regardless where students come from. He is sure that to understand who one really is,one has to go abroad to meet some unexpected things. Mr. Brooks explained that there are four levels of happiness: material pleasure; ego pleasure, which comprises being better than others; giving back to others and transcendence, which means to feel unconditional love. Third and fourth are highest levels that are more difficult to reach. The community of educators is almost the only institution, which stays together organizing cohesive team teaching young people how to be maintained by reaching these levels. Maria Didkovskaya, head of Internationalization Department, who took part in NAFSA-2016 and represented ITMO University together with her colleagues, commented on his speech.

“All the things we do at ITMO U and all the decisions we make are powered by love. It is important to turn formal challenges in something personal and replace such cynical words as “promotion” and “career” with “contribution” and “commitment.” I was very happy to find the same ideas in Mr. Brooks’s speech. It means that we are going the right way!”

The next NAFSA Conference & Expo will take place in Los Angeles, California on May 28 - Jun 02. Over 10,000 people are expected to join the largest global education community. Learn more on the official website of National Association of Foreign Student Advisers.