Developments of the liberal arts in global contexts

Brandon is founding editor of Liberal Arts Global Lens and Associate Director of English for Academic Purposes at New York University Shanghai. Joining NYU Shanghai in its inaugural year, 2013-14, he taught the writing workshop for the liberal arts plenary course, Global Perspectives on Society, while also designing the English for Academic Purposes Program. The program is innovative in offering courses to all Chinese first-year students that help them develop the foundational skills necessary for the liberal arts experience at NYU Shanghai. In 2016, Brandon won a grant from the NYU New York Provost’s Office Global Research Initiatives program for his proposal, along with NYUSH colleague Amy Becker, to organize the first Colloquium on Supporting the Liberal Arts in Global Contexts. The colloquium, which was held March 10-11, 2017, brought together more than 100 participants from liberal arts institutions in China and beyond, including NYU New York and Abu Dhabi, Yale-NUS College, Duke Kunshan, Fudan, Tsinghua, Minerva Schools, University of Hong Kong, and United International College. Brandon holds an EdD in higher education from the University of Liverpool, where he researched the Chinese students' conceptualization of liberal arts education at NYU Shanghai. He received an MA in applied linguistics from the University of New England and a BA in linguistics and philosophy from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Prior to joining NYU Shanghai, he was a lecturer of English for Academic Purposes at China’s second joint venture university, Xian Jiaotong-Liverpool University.

Noah Pickus is contributing co-editor of Liberal Arts Global Lens, Associate Provost and Senior Advisor to the Provost at Duke University, and Dean of Undergraduate Curricular Affairs and Faculty Development at Duke Kunshan University. Prior to serving in these roles, he was the Nannerl O. Keohane Director of the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University and the founding Director of the Institute for Emerging Issues at NC State University. At Duke, he focuses on strategic planning, learning innovation, and policy engagement and co-authored Duke’s Strategic Plan: Together Duke. At DKU, he led the design of an innovative, interdisciplinary, and problem-based undergraduate curriculum and is responsible for hiring a new faculty, implementing the curriculum, and developing innovative pedagogical approaches. He has taught at Middlebury College and in China and Israel. He was an American Council on Education Fellow at Franklin & Marshall College and is currently the Cohort Co-Director for the Arizona State University-Georgetown University Academy for Innovation in Higher Education Leadership. An Associate Research Professor of Public Policy, Pickus co-directed the Brookings-Duke Immigration Policy Roundtable and is the author of True Faith and Allegiance: Immigration and American Civic Nationalism (Princeton) and Immigration and Citizenship in the 21st Century (Rowman & Littlefield), as well as essays on ethics and public affairs education, and policy reports on liberal arts education in China, U.S. immigration policy, and innovation in higher education. He has held fellowships from the Thomas J. Watson Foundation, the A.W. Mellon Foundation, and the H.B. Earhart Foundation. He received a bachelor’s degree in the College of Social Studies at Wesleyan University and a doctorate in politics from Princeton University.

Jim is Associate Professor at the William & Mary School of Education in Williamsburg, Virginia, where he teaches in the Department of Educational Policy, Planning and Leadership. For over twelve years, he has studied the liberal arts as a researcher with the Wabash National Study of Liberal Arts Education. He is an expert in the areas of college student development, assessing student learning, and integrative learning. His research has been published in the American Educational Research Journal, Journal of College Student Development, Journal of Higher Education, and Change Magazine. He is currently on sabbatical leave writing a book titled Integration of Learning: Five Research-Based Practices to Help Students Learn Across Contexts. He worked with students on a comparative study abroad voyage to eleven nations with Semester at Sea (2005), and has served as the faculty director for William & Mary programs in the Czech Republic (2011), China (2013, 2016), and Spain (2017). He is a member of the Advisory Council for the Institute for Pilgrimage Studies at William & Mary. Prior to his current faculty appointment, he worked in student affairs administration for nearly a decade, specializing in residence life and student organizations at Davidson College and Southern Methodist University.

Brooke A. Carlson, Ph.D. teaches in the English Department at Chaminade University of Honolulu. His specialty is the early modern stage, but in addition to Shakespeare, he teaches literature and expository writing. Professor Carlson has published on Korean Shakespeare, using Twitter in the 21st-century classroom, post-colonial pedagogy for composition, and collaboratively on how to use RefWorks with composition. He co-chaired the Core Competency Assessment Committee from 2013 to 2017, and was a part of the Gen Ed Ad Hoc Committee explored here. In the summer, Professor Carlson teaches in Seoul, South Korea, in their International Summer Session.

Leonard K. Cheng is President and Chair Professor of Economics of Lingnan University (LU), Hong Kong. Professor Cheng has been President of Lingnan University since September 2013. Prior to joining LU, he served as Dean of the School of Business and Management of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST Business School) from 2009 to 2013. Professor Cheng graduated with a first-class honours Bachelor of Social Sciences degree in economics from The Chinese University of Hong Kong in 1975, and was awarded an MA and a PhD in economics by the University of California, Berkeley, in 1977 and 1980, respectively. His research interests include applied game theory, market structure, currency crisis, international trade and investment, technological innovation and imitation, China’s inward and outward foreign direct investment, and national security protectionism. He has published papers in many leading academic journals in economics, and has served as an associate editor of the Journal of International Economics and Pacific Economic Review.

Kara is Associate Dean of the Faculty, Minerva Schools at KGI.

She earned her Ph.D. in music and humanities from Stanford University. As a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Humanities, she taught for four years in Stanford’s Introduction to the Humanities Program. In addition, she designed and led classes on popular music, music of the Americas, music appreciation, and music and gender at the University of San Francisco for more than ten years. In 2008, she received a teaching award for innovative pedagogy and commitment to student learning from USF. She also taught writing-intensive seminars for graduate students at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Her book "Agnes de Mille: Telling Stories in Broadway Dance" was published by Oxford University Press in August, 2106. She joined the Minerva Schools at KGI in the fall of 2013, and currently serves as Associate Dean of the Faculty.

Dr. Nancy W. Gleason is Director of the Centre for Teaching & Learning at Yale-NUS College, Singapore, where she overseas faculty development in teaching and student support in learning through the distinctive pedagogy of the liberal arts. She is a Senior Lecturer of Global Affairs in the Social Sciences Division, teaching and researching on pathways of globalisation, higher education, liberal arts education in Asia, and the fourth industrial revolution (4IR). She is editor and contributor to Higher Education in the Era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (Palgrave Press 2018). Prior to joining Yale-NUS, Dr Gleason was a lecturer at Tufts University in Boston, Massachusetts. She received her BA from George Washington University’s Elliot School of International Affairs, her MSc from the London School of Economics and her PhD from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.

Kara A. Godwin, Ph.D., is a higher education consultant for governments, universities, and international organizations. She is also a Research Fellow at the Center for International Higher Education (CIHE) at Boston College. Her work focuses on curriculum, learning/teaching, strategic planning, policy, and internationalization. Her forthcoming book, Changing Tides: The Global Rise (and US Decline) of Liberal Education, analyzes the growing global interest in liberal arts education. Based on a worldwide database of more than 200 programs, she founded the new Global Liberal Education Collaboratory, an emerging international association of non-US liberal arts initiatives. Before CIHE, Dr. Godwin was at the Northwestern University Center for Advancing Learning and Teaching where she worked with faculty, undergraduates, and led programs for domestic and international graduate students. She has been a visiting scholar at Amsterdam University College, a policy analyst in the US, and a consultant for projects on international development, curriculum assessment, study abroad, and faculty development. In her former career, Dr. Godwin was an information technology analyst and project manager in the US and UK.

With a PhD from Emory University in Interdisciplinary Studies, Gray has taught in the United States, Switzerland, Germany, and Hong Kong. Currently, he is serving as the Director of the Common Core at the University of Hong Kong, and, prior to this position he served as Professor of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences, the inaugural Director of the Discovery Core, and Associate Vice Chancellor for Undergraduate Learning at the University of Washington-Bothell. In 2009-10 he was a Fulbright Scholar in General Education, based at HKU but serving all eight publicly funded universities in Hong Kong, and, in 2017, served as a Visiting Professor at the Institute of Cultural Analysis (ICON) at Utrecht University. The author of Kant in Hong Kong; Philosophy, Art, and the Specters of Jacques Derrida; Night Café; TechnoLogics; Starting Time; and Narcissus Transformed, he is currently writing on the global university and on the interplay of philosophy and the city.

Simon Marginson is Professor of International Higher Education at the UCL Institute of Education at University College London in the UK, Director of the ESRC/HEFCE Centre for Global Higher Education (CGHE), and Editor-in-Chief of Higher Education. CGHE is a research partnership of five UK and eight international universities with £6.5 million in funding for 16 projects on global, national and local aspects of higher education. Simon’s research is mostly focused on global and international aspects of higher education, and higher education and social inequality. He was the Clark Kerr Lecturer on Higher Education at the University of California, Berkeley in 2014. He is a member of Academia Europaea and a Lifetime Fellow of the UK Society for Research into Higher Education, and currently Co-Chair of the Higher Education Commission Inquiry into Education Exports in the UK. Simon’s most recent sole authored book is Higher Education and the Common Good (Melbourne University Publishing, 2016). Later this year Oxford University Press will publish High Participation Systems of Higher Education, coedited by Brendan Cantwell, Simon Marginson and Anna Smolentseva, which theorises the social implications of the rapid world-wide growth of participation in higher education and includes case studies in eight countries.

Professor Ka Ho Mok is the Vice-President and concurrently Lam Man Tsan Chair Professor of Comparative Policy of Lingnan University. He has extensive research experience in international higher education and comparative social policy with focus on Asia and contemporary China.

Dr Catherine (Kate) Sanger is Deputy Director of the Centre for Teaching & Learning at Yale-NUS College, where she works with faculty and students to facilitate transformative student learning and powerful faculty teaching. Dr Sanger has particular responsibility for managing student learning accommodations, peer tutoring, syllabus design, and pedagogy development for junior faculty. She is especially interested in supporting faculty to develop inclusive teaching strategies for a diverse educational community. She is a Lecturer in the Social Sciences, teaching courses for both the Global Affairs and the Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) majors. Her teaching interests span international security and law, American politics, the politics of technological-territorial discovery, and research methods. Most recently, she designed and taught ‘American Politics and the 2016 Presidential Election’, ‘Global Affairs Senior Research Capstone Course’, and ‘Conquest, Territorial Expansion, and the Foundations of International Law’. From 2014-2017 Dr Sanger served as the inaugural Assistant Dean of Students for Cendana Residential College, one of three Residential Colleges at Yale-NUS. Dr Sanger holds a PhD in International Affairs from the University of Virginia and pursued undergraduate study at Wellesley College and the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Denis Simon is the Senior Adviser to the President for China Affairs at Duke University. He also serves as Executive Director of the Center for Innovation Policy at the Duke Law School. From 2015-2020, he served as the Executive Vice Chancellor at Duke Kunshan University. Dr. Simon has had a long, distinguished career in international education, including stints as Vice-Provost for International Affairs at Arizona State University and the University of Oregon. He also has had a successful career in international management consultant, having served as Founding President of Monitor Group China as well as General Manager of Andersen Consulting in Beijing (now Accenture). In 2006, he awarded the China National Friendship Award by former Premier Wen Jiabao in the Great Hall in Beijing. This is the most prestigious award given to a foreign expert who has worked collaboratively with China over a long period. Throughout the last four decades, Dr. Simon has been a productive researcher and author; his primary field of research involves the study of science and technology policy, innovation strategy, and high-end talent in China. He holds an MA in Asian Studies and a PhD in Political Science from UC Berkeley. He received his BA degree in Asian Studies and Political Science from the State University of New York at New Paltz.

Professor Xiangchen SUN is Director of the Center for General Education and Dean of the School of Philosophy, Fudan University. His main research areas range from modern western philosophy, political philosophy, Jewish Christian philosophy, phenomenology and French philosophy to the theory in General Education. He was a visiting scholar at Yale University, University of Chicago and University of Birmingham. Metaphysics in 17th Century (coauthor) won the third prize for the Excellent Achievements in Philosophy and Social Science of Shanghai (2006). Facing the Other: On Levinas’ Philosophy won the second prize for the Excellent Achievements in Philosophy and Social Science of Shanghai (2010). He received such honors and awards as Excellent Young Teacher in Shanghai, Star of Century Excellence in Teaching of Fudan University, and the second prize for the National Achievements in teaching (2014).

Professor John von Heyking is Professor of Political Science at the University of Lethbridge, where he teaches political philosophy and religion and politics. He is author of Comprehensive Judgment and Absolute Selflessness: Winston Churchill on Politics as Friendship (2018), The Form of Politics: Aristotle and Plato on Friendship (2016), and Augustine and Politics as Longing in the World (2001). He has coedited numerous volumes including two volumes of the Collected Works of Eric Voegelin and, most recently, Hunting and Weaving, Empiricism and Political Philosophy (2013). He has published scholarly articles on topics including friendship, cosmopolitanism, liberal education, empire, Islamic political thought, punishment, and religious liberty in Canada. His scholarly articles have appeared in Journal of China Studies, Review of Politics, History of Political Thought, Supreme Court Law Review, Perspectives on Political Science, Political Science Reviewer, History of Human Sciences, International Political Anthropology, and the University of British Columbia Law Review. His essays and reviews have appeared in Voegelinview, Globe and Mail (Toronto), Calgary Herald, C2C: Canada's Journal of Ideas, Troy Media, and Convivium.

Professor von Heyking has researched and written extensively on liberal education and its place in the modern world. His most recent publication, “The Figure of Socrates and its Significance for Liberal Education in Asia,” was first delivered as an invited lecture at the launch conference of the Alliance of Asian Liberal Arts Universities, which also marked the fiftieth anniversary of Lingnan University in Hong Kong.

Vivek Wadhwa is a Distinguished Fellow at Harvard Law School and Carnegie Mellon University’s College of Engineering at Silicon Valley. He author of Your Happiness Was Hacked: Why Tech Is Winning the Battle to Control Your Brain—and How to Fight Back; The Driver in the Driverless Car: How Our Technology Choices Will Create the Future; The Immigrant Exodus: Why America Is Losing the Global Race to Capture Entrepreneurial Talent; and of Innovating Women: The Changing Face of Technology. He has been a globally syndicated columnist for The Washington Post and held appointments at Duke University, Stanford Law School, Emory University, and Singularity University.

Professor Wadhwa is based in Silicon Valley and researches exponentially advancing technologies that are soon going to change our world. These advances–in fields such as robotics, artificial intelligence, computing, synthetic biology, 3D printing, medicine, and nanomaterials–are making it possible for small teams to do what was once possible only for governments and large corporations to do: solve the grand challenges in education, water, food, shelter, health, and security. They will also disrupt industries and create many new policy, law, and ethics issues.

In 2012, the U.S. Government awarded Wadhwa distinguished recognition as an “Outstanding American by Choice”, for his “commitment to this country and to the common civic values that unite us as Americans”. He was also named one of the world’s “Top 100 Global Thinkers” by Foreign Policy magazine in that year; in June 2013, he was on TIME magazine’s list of “Tech 40”, one of forty of the most influential minds in tech; and in September 2015, he was second on a list of “ten men worth emulating” in The Financial Times.

Wadhwa is also a contributor to VentureBeat, The Huffington Post, LinkedIn Influencers blog, and the American Society of Engineering Education’s Prism magazine. Prior to joining academia in 2005, Wadhwa founded two software companies.