Plenary Speakers

The World Universities Forum will feature plenary sessions by some of the world’s leading thinkers and innovators in the field, as well as numerous parallel presentations by researchers and practitioners.

Garden Conversations

Plenary Speakers will make formal 30-minute presentations. They will also participate in 60-minute Garden Conversations - unstructured sessions that allow delegates a chance to meet the speakers and talk with them informally about the issues arising from their presentation.

Please return to this page for regular updates.

Anthony B. L. Cheung Professor Anthony B. L. Cheung, GBS, JP is the President of The Hong Kong Institute of Education, Chair Professor of Public Administration, and Director of the Centre for Governance and Citizenship. Professor Cheung received his PhD degree in Government from The London School of Economics and Political Science, UK. He has written extensively on privatization, civil service and public sector reforms, government and politics in Hong Kong and China, and Asian administrative reforms, having published 11 authored/edited books, 100 referred book chapters and journal articles, and presented over 150 conference papers and prestigious lectures/talks. Professor Cheung is a Non-Official Member of the Executive Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, and also sits on several statutory and advisory bodies including: the Consumer Council (as chairman), the Housing Authority (as chairman of the Subsidized Housing Committee), Hong Kong Mortgage Corporation (member of Board of Directors), and the Greater Pearl River Delta Business Council (as member).

S. Gopinathan Dr S. Gopinathan is Professorial Fellow at the Policy & Leadership Studies (PLS), Curriculum, Teaching & Learning (CTL) at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University. He served as the Dean of the School of Education (Mar 1994 till June 2000) and was the former Dean of Foundations Programme (July 2000 till June 2003) and Head, CRPP (May 2008 till Feb 2009). In this role he oversaw the development and implementation of the newly launched BA/BSc (Education) programme. He is a founder member of the Educational Research Association of Singapore and serves on the International Advisory Board of the Asia Pacific Journal of Education, and co-edits the Routledge Critical Studies in Asian Education.

 

Shi Jinghuan Dr. Shi Jinghuan is a professor and the Executive Dean of the Institute of Education, Tsinghua University. She also works as the Chairperson of Beijing Association of Women Professors and is a member of the 10th and 11th Beijing Municipal Political Council. Dr. Shi Jinghuan has worked as a professor, the Deputy Department Chair and the Director of Research Institute of Education and Cultural History in Beijing Normal University for quite a number of years. She worked as a Fulbright professor in the University of Maryland at College Park, US in 1996 and as a specially Appointed Professor at the Center for Research and Development of Higher Education at Hokkaido University in Japan in 2006. She currently serves as an oversea Auditor, Australian Universities Quality Agency (AUQA). She has broad academic publications in higher education, international and comparative education and history of education. Dr. Shi Jinghuan has a rich experience in working with international organizations. She worked as the consultants for the projects of the World Bank, the UNDP, the UNESCO and the UNICEF.

 

 

William G. Tierney William G. Tierney is University Professor and Wilbur-Kieffer Professor of Higher Education and Director of the Center for Higher Education Policy Analysis at the University of Southern California.  Former President of the USC Academic Senate, he chaired the Ph.D. program for the USC Rossier School of Education and chaired the University Committee on Academic Review.  Having spent over two decades conducting research on college access for underrepresented youth, Dr. Tierney is committed to informing policies and practices related to educational equity. He is currently involved in a project to develop, evaluate and disseminate a highly interactive, entertaining, web-enhanced computer game for low-income youth that will boost high school students’ college aspirations and equip players with knowledge about preparing for and succeeding in college.  He is also involved in projects pertaining to the problems of remediation to ensure that high school students are college-ready, and a project investigating how to improve strategic decision-making in higher education. His other strand of research pertains to privatization and the changing nature of how we define the ‘public good.’  He has done research on for-profit colleges and universities and he is currently looking at state-level policies that enhance or inhibit college-going for under-represented youth.  He has received funding for his research from, among others, the Lilly Endowment, the Irvine Foundation, Atlantic Philanthropies, the Ford Foundation, the U.S. Department of Education and Lumina Foundation for Education.  The results of his work have appeared in numerous journal articles, book chapters and books.  His most recent publications include: The Impact of Culture on Organizational Decision-making; Trust and the Public Good: Examining the Cultural Conditions of Academic Work; New Players, Different Game: Understanding the Rise of For-profit Colleges and Universities (with Guilbert Hentschke);Financial Aid and Access: Understanding the Public Policy Challenges; and Building the Responsive Campus: Creating High Performance Colleges and Universities.   Tierney brings to his work administrative experience as an academic dean at a Native American community college in North Dakota, and cross-cultural insight from Peace Corps work in Morocco and his experience as a Fulbright Scholar in Central America and Australia.  He recently completed a sabbatical where he was scholar-in-residence at University Sains Malaysia and the University of Sydney.  Dr. Tierney earned a master’s degree from Harvard University and holds a Ph.D. from Stanford University in administration and policy analysis.  He teaches graduate courses on writing, higher education policy, administration and governance, organizational behavior, and research design. He has received the Distinguished Research Award fromthe Association for the Study of Higher Education.  He has been president of the Association for the Study of Higher Education, and vice president of the American Educational Research Association.   In 2006 he was appointed University Professor at the University of Southern California, the first such distinction for a professor of education in the history of the university. In 2009 he was elected a Fellow of the American Educational Research Association, and New players, different game won the book of the year award from Phi Kappa Phi.

 

Tapio Varis Professor of Professional Education, with particular reference to global learning environments at the University of Tampere, Finland, Research Centre for Vocational Education, and UNESCO Chair in global e-Learning with applications to multiple domains. Principal research associate of UNESCO-UNEVOC. Governing Board Member of UNESCO-IITE. Acting President of Global University System (GUS). Former Rector of the University for Peace in Costa Rica. Expert on media and digital literacy to the European Union. Communication and Media Scholar at the University of Helsinki and the University of Art and Design in Helsinki. and the University of Lapland, Finland, Published over 200 scientific contributions. Visiting Professor and Lecturer in many countries in Europe, North and South America, and other regions of the world. www.globaluniversitysystem.info tapio.varis@uta.fi