Application

Heyneman, Stephen

• Professor
  
• Vanderbilt University
  
• Department of Leadership, Policy and Organization
  
• United States

In 1998, Dr. Heynemn was appointed Vice President for International Operations of the International Management and Development Group in Alexandria, Virginia. Among his clients were the British Broadcasting Corporation and the Education Testing Service.

In 2000, he was appointed Professor of International Education Policy at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, where he teaches courses in education economics, higher and K - 12 education policy, international organizations and economic development and manages Vanderbilt's new MA and doctoral programs in International Education Policy and Management. His research interests include the international trade in education, education corruption and the contribution of education to social cohesion.

Dr. Heyneman received his BA in Political Science from the University of California at Berkeley in 1964, his MA in African Area Studies from UCLA in 1965, and his PhD in Comparative Education from the University of Chicago in 1976.

Selected Publications

• Islam and Social Policy 2005 Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press (editor)
  
• "Educational Philanthropy: The International Dimension," in Hess, R. (ed.) With the Best of Intentions: Lessons Learned from K - 12 Philanthropy. Cambridge: Harvard University Press 2005 (forthcoming).
  
• "Organizations and Social Cohesion," Peabody Journal of Education 2005 (forthcoming)
  
• "Education and Corruption," International Journal of Education Development Vol. 24 No. 6 2004, pp. 638 - 48.
  
• "Defining the Influence of Education on Social Cohesion," International Journal of Educational Policy, Research and Practice 3 # 4 (Winter, 2002/3), pp. 73 - 97

It is axiomatic to think of higher education as a social good, with many of its benefits and costs affecting the public at large. But exactly what specific effect higher education may have, and how those effects can be defined, measured and calculated, has been a subject of long debate. With the emergence of many 'new' nations in the 1960s, the debate tended to center on issues of nation-building, including the general education role of broadening outlook, increasing tolerance and the desire to participate in the political process; the connection between education and democratic stability; and the degree to which education was associated with greater voluntary political participation. Higher education specifically was thought to add to a nation's technical manpower, its ability to participate in political and economic debate, and, at the highest level, its ability to generate new knowledge.

To focus solely on the abrogation of professional practice (i.e., on corruption) is not a constructive means to approach this problem. It is possible to find a higher education institution free of corruption but which does not contribute in any obvious manner to a nation's social cohesion. It is also possible to imagine an institution effective at contributing to a nation's social cohesion in many ways in addition to being free of corruption. The task of social cohesion today is quite different from how nation-building might have been conceived in an earlier era. In the 1960s the major focus was on how graduates conducted themselves. Today the focus is on how universities conduct themselves. It includes their participation in what might be thought of as an international standard for economic and political behavior (including social inclusion of minorities and gender equity among students and faculty), transparency of budgeting and governance, tolerance in academic endeavors, its direct teaching of the lessons of citizenship in what is often a tense and unsettled social setting. Universities continue to be expected to maintain their sense of professional autonomy, but with the passing of the party/states in the former Soviet Union and Easter Europe, state ideological dominance is no longer acceptable. This has left universities to professionally fend for themselves, and establish their own standards of university integrity.

My project will focus on how they are doing so far. In what ways have universities been successful at establishing their own standards of integrity? Are the perceptions of this success shared equally among faculty and students? Equally across disciplines and schools? To answer some of these questions I would intend to concentrate on eight issues: how history is taught, how language is used, civics and citizenship, pedagogy, external relations, social equity, faculty and administrative honesty, and academic freedom. Results of this work will be shared with the rectors and senior administrators of the host universities. The first purpose will be to help them see the issues in a factual and professional manner and to help them prepare a plan for their long term development base in part on the project reports. The second purpose of these reports will be to discuss them with my fellow New Century Scholar Researchers. Although they will be concentrating on other topics, some may have an interest in the social cohesion issues, both in the former Soviet Union and as this plays out in Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and North Africa and Asia. Because I have some personal experience in working on education problems in each of these regions, I would look forward to assisting other scholars in thinking through problems in which they are interested in these other regional settings.