European higher education changes, impact discussed at ISU

Changes in European higher education could have a lasting impact upon education in the United States, a European researcher informed faculty at Indiana State University on Monday.

Johanna Witte, a senior researcher at the Bavarian State Institute for Higher Education Research and Planning in Munich, Germany, spoke about the ongoing innovation in higher education and what that means for American colleges and universities.

“This is far beyond the borders of the European Union,” Witte said.

Thus far, 46 countries from Albania to the United Kingdom and including the Russian Federation and the Holy See, have agreed to what is being called the Bologna Process from a 1999 meeting in Bologna, Italy, when 29 countries signed a declaration about developing a higher education area with massive changes to be completed by 2010. It is an idea that developed from higher education institutions and not from the European Union, Witte said.