Carnegie Mellon University to open new campus here in Adelaide, South Australia

http://www.theadvertiser.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,11229323%255E910,00.html

Quite a coup for Carnegie Mellon, as I know of many private providers that were trying to create either a campus or new university here in Adelaide. Carnegie Mellon has been delivering some joint badged awards with TAFE (who I work for) for a couple of years. This really came out of the blue - it will be interesting to see the reaction of the three established universities.

Cheers,

George

 

I think this is great. The U.S. has become an unfriendly place for foreign students. This could be a wonderful development for Australia.

 

Perhaps, Oxpecker, but one needs to tread with caution. Australian higher education has been capitalising on its geographic proximity to Asia, with quite lucrative deals being struck and an enormous influx of onshore overseas students in the last decade. However, the warning bells are now being struck. AUQA is soon to commence whole of country audits (not uni by uni but country by country) in order to ascertain the level and quality of Australian operations in neighbouring countries. This is a strong, proactive measure designed to ensure that equivalency of overseas operations is commesurate with local offerings. All countries, not only Australia, seeking to deliver offshore, need to understand that 'Quality' is the only brand that will sell higher education in the future.

Cheers,

George

 

How so? Or are you just saying that the US has become an unfriendly place for foreigners - period.

I think most universities bend over backwards to court foreign students so surely what you speak of is not something that is specific to students. From my perspective, the only thing that has changed is that foreign visitors are required to provide more documentation and it is more strictly checked. Is this what you consider "unfriendly". How do you think this compares with how US citizens are treated by europeans?

 

Carnegie Mellon is in the midst of a world-wide expansion. This Adelaide venture is just part of it.

Several years ago CMU signed an agreement to create a research-teaching facility at the former Moffit Field Naval Air Station, adjacent to NASA Ames Research Center. (In Silicon Valley, not far from Stanford and about 10 miles north of San Jose.) UC Santa Cruz, Stanford, San Jose State and Foothill college, along with several corporate partners, are also going to be building facilities there, doing research and offering classes at all levels. Lots of talk about research synergies and stuff.

http://amesnews.arc.nasa.gov/releases/2000/00_06AR.html

While a lot of it is still bogged down in a jungle of construction red tape, the thing is up and running in initial form:

http://west.cmu.edu/

It's already doing research and has graduated its first crop of students.

And because Carnegie Mellon is a non-WASC school, by law CMU-West is... yep... CA-approved! It's right there on the BPPVE website.

I'm a little put off by the Australian news story's emphasis on foreign students. Is CMU-Adelaide going to prohibit Australians from enrolling or what? What's wrong with it having a domestic impact?

It would make more sense to me if they pitched this thing the same way that CMU-West is doing it in Silicon Valley, as a way to increase Adelaide's critical mass as an antipodean science-technology hotbed and emphasized its research synergy with the existing Australian universities, with Adelaide area tech industries and with the big Australian defense laboratory near Adelaide. Adelaide could be Australia's San Jose (oh my God, that's scary) if it wanted to be, your Silicon Valley. If that attracts foreign students, then cool, but are the foreigners really its only value to Australia?

You Aussies probably also need to know that Carnegie Mellon is two-timing you. They are busy inking another agreement to plant a CMU campus in the Persian Gulf emirate of Qatar and apparently are talking to Singapore as well:

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/search/s_171168.html

 

Thanks Bill - interesting info. So CMU operations in California are non-RA? In Pittsburgh they are RA, no?

You and me both, but that is what Asia is seen as for higher education providers in Australia. Commonwealth funding is diminishing and Aussie unis are having to become businesses in order to attract full-fee paying students. A fact of life I am afraid, but as I stated above, quality will be the primary sales pitch.

It is unclear at this stage if CMU-Adelaide will be eligible for HECS or PELS (loan system here in Australia) places for students, but I seriously doubt they would set up here if this was not provided as part of the deal. Domestic students will no doubt be able to pay their way or use the HECS/PELS route (if provided) - there is no way CMU-Adelaide could or would prohibit local students. Indeed, they would be encouraging them and would be part of their accreditation assessment.

The television interviews are certainly promoting the venture in this manner, and I think it is excellent. CMU-Adelaide could act as an excellent broker and research arm to bring synergy to the existing research efforts.

I wouldn't call it two timing Bill - virtually all of Australia's existing universities are doing the same thing, but the impact on domestic numbers is yet to be determined.

It is worthy to note here that CMU-Adelaide will be seeking to have its own Act of Parliament in order to commence operations here. It could have applied through different channels and used its existing status in the US to operate, but it is going through the 'Platinum' accreditation route. So, it will be a South Australian University, self-accrediting and listed on the AQF Register as such. Let's just hope this does not become another Greenwich and full consultation has/ will be done with all other state based universities. Luckily no Commonwealth assent is required for this one, so we shouldn't have another Minister with egg on their face (hopefully!!!).

Cheers,

George

 

If you are Daddy sitting at home in Jakarta and your precious daughter comes and says she wants to learn English abroad, Daddy sends her to Australia or Canada, but not to the U.S.

Since 9/11, we have had a once very successful English language school here close because of cancelled applications and the inability to convince enough other students to come here. This is not solely a local problem. Many of the university-based and private language institutes have had much the same problem.

To my thinking, when he says "unfriendly", it can also mean that the U.S. is no longer what it once was.



Tom Nixon

 

Hi George.

No, Carnegie Mellon's Silicon Valley operation is totally, eminently 100% RA. Its regional accreditor is the one that accredits the home campus back in Pennsylvania, Middle States I believe.

It's just that according to California law, private universities accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges get a blanket exemption from state approval requirements. (Government run schools are exempt as well.) But private schools that are either unaccredited or accredited by other accreditors, including the five out-of-state regional accreditors, have to have any of their operations located in California approved by the BPPVE. (Religious schools can avoid having to meet most of the requirements.)

That creates the curious situation where the CA-approved list includes not only our familiar Cal Coast and SCUPS, it also includes Carnegie Mellon University (which operates what some call America's best computer science program) and the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Finance (they operate a remote-site MBA program in San Francisco).

http://app1.dca.ca.gov/bppve/school-search/view-school.asp?schlcode=0703171

But I want to emphasize that this is just a peculiarity of California law and it doesn't reflect badly on Carnegie Mellon's remote site programs in California, Adelaide or anywhere.

The California site provides instruction leading to the award of Carnegie Mellon University info tech masters degrees (I suppose that more programs will be added to the lineup as time goes on) and they count as degrees granted by a fully accredited RA institution.

Whether the Adelaide campus will provide American degree programs or native Australian ones is up to the parties and the regulatory bodies, but if CMU-Adelaide starts out by offering remote-site versions of American degrees, they will be fully RA and entirely legitimate from our end (it would obviously be up to Australians to decide for themselves what they think of them). But Carnegie Mellon is considered a very prestigious name in the international computer science world. (It is in other science and engineering fields too.)

Frankly, I think that this is a very cool thing for Adelaide and that there's nothing to worry about.

Yeah, I can understand that. There's nothing wrong with selling educational services. It contributes to the greater good, it meets a need and it helps Australia earn its living.

But I just thought that Carnegie Mellon moving to Adelaide might have some value to Australians beyond how many East Asians it can attract. If Carnegie Mellon is known for world-class research, and if some of that work is being done right there in Adelaide, that will have lots of positive effects for you, ranging from stimulating new ideas at your existing universities and laboratories, to offering new opportunities for your scholars, to industrial spin-offs and government collaborations.

Silicon Valley started out as a collection of Stanford Unversity spin-offs, as companies were started by Stanford professors and graduates, and as outside companies and government laboratories decided to locate their R&D efforts in the research intensive atmosphere. You see similar examples in the Boston area and in the North Carolina "research triangle". Scientists and engineers like to hang out in intellectually stimulating places that already have lots of scientists and engineers. A Carnegie Mellon branch campus in Adelaide isn't going to accomplish that all by itself, but it would add incrementally to it. My impression from half the world away is that Adelaide is already known for strong academics (which is probably why CMU decided to locate there), so it's not a stretch.

My point in saying that CMU was two-timing you was that if Australia only sees value in CMU locating in Australia because of its potential to attract Asian and Middle Eastern students, Australia needs to know that Carnegie Mellon is going after those same Asian students directly, at the source.

I'm totally clueless about the Australian higher education system.

But that sounds like a good idea if CMU-Adelaide intends to serve a domestic Australian market. It would eliminate all of those annoying accreditation squabbles and it would ensure that the school's programs conform with Australian practices and formats. That would probably make it easier for Australian academia, government and industry to interact freely with it.

It might not be quite such a good idea if the purpose of this thing is to attract Asian students with the "Carnegie Mellon" name. If it's the American degree programs that have earned CMU its international reputation, those foreign students are probably going to want this to be an opportunity for them to earn American degrees awarded direct from the source in Pittsburgh. They might not be as eager to enroll in something that is technically a separate Australian university with the same ownership as Carnegie Mellon and with a closely related name.

There's little danger of that. Carnegie Mellon University is an entirely different kind of animal than Greenwich University of Hawaii/Norfolk Island.

CMU could successfully meet any Australian standard, I think, though it might involve changing program details, administrative procedures and stuff like that, plus the investment in physical plant. But the basic academics are certainly beyond reproach.

 

From The Australian: How to get to Carnegie Mellon

 

This was very much my own idea when I first read through this thread. I would, however, take it a bit further, to the INS and all those folks who process visas (education visas and otherwise). One of the main stories in the post 911 news was in regards to persons allowed into the US on student visas. Apparently they were never tracked in any way. No one ever checked to see if they actually registered at the schools they were supposed to be attending. No one ever checked to see if they actually attended classes, and at the point when the visa actually expired, no one ever checked to see where the person was. Are they still in the US? Are they in school? Are they living in another state? No one ever knew the answers. Because of this, there was supposed to be a tighter operation plan developed regarding student visas. Is this unfriendly? To me it sounds like what happens in every other country in the world (as if I really know)
Jack