Presidents from American and Asian universitiesJwill meet for the first time this week to discuss preserving and expanding collaborations as competition for students intensifies, writes Jon Marcus .
The American Association of Universities and the Association of Pacific Rim Universities will convene in Singapore to reach a sort of detente, officials said.
"We want to discuss ways we can continue to compete because competition produces the best science and the best education," said Barry Toiv, an AAU representative. "But we don't want the competition to undermine our collaboration, in which research is increasing. These are complex relationships."
US universities in particular are concerned about a plateauing in numbers of international students, many of whom have traditionally come from nations such as India and China, which are building their own universities. In addition, post-September 11, 2001, security is making it harder to get a US student visa.
But Mr Toiv said action was being taken over visas. "We've worked very hard with the federal Government to make sure visa policies don't inappropriately create a playing field that tilts in the wrong direction."
The meeting is being hosted by the National University of Singapore on June 30 and July 1. As many as 30 presidents are expected to attend from the 60 AAU schools, which include Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Stanford universities and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The Association of Pacific Rim Universities is a consortium of 36 institutions that includes Seoul National University, Peking University, the University of Sydney, the University of Chile, the University of British Columbia and another Canadian university and 11 US universities, all but two of which are in California.