CGHE Annual Conference

CGHE 2020 Annual Conference webinar: Graduates and graduateness

Date: Tuesday, 7 July 2020 2:00 pm - 3:00 pm

Location: Zoom webinar

Speaker(s):

View the chat function transcript

View Paul Ashwin’s presentation slides

View Ka Ho and Lin’s presentation slides

Due to the COVID-19 outbreak, the 2020 CGHE conference did not go ahead as planned on 1 April at Senate House, University of London. Instead we are bringing to a larger worldwide audience the pick of this year’s conference discussion as a webinar series. The fourth webinar in the conference paper series focuses on graduates and the concept of graduateness. CGHE’s Deputy Director Paul Ashwin will provide a new understanding of ‘graduateness’ in reference to Chemistry and Chemical Engineering students and their changing engagement with knowledge. Ka Ho Mok and Jin Jiang will then discuss the job acquisition prospects of Chinese PhD students after returning from international studies.

Rethinking Graduateness? How students’ relations to knowledge change over the course of their Chemistry and Chemical Engineering degrees
Paul Ashwin, CGHE Deputy Director (presenting), Margaret Blackie, University of Stellenbosch and Nicole Pitterson, Virginia Tech
In times characterised by economic difficulties, dynamic social relationships and future uncertainty, there is a fresh interrogation of the purposes of an undergraduate education. Another contemporary focus in higher education is on the economic rationale of universities and on the special role of STEM disciplines, which are seen as lucrative for graduates’ career success as well as for the development of national economies. What is less emphasised and less understood is the transformational impact of these disciplines in terms of the ways in which they transform students’ sense of identity as they engage with disciplinary knowledge. This is a key element of ‘graduateness’ that is characteristic of higher education. In this paper, we will examine how students studying Chemistry and Chemical Engineering in South Africa, the UK, and USA are changed by their engagement with knowledge over the course of their undergraduate degrees. This will provide new understandings of graduateness in these areas and the paper will explore the implications for policy and practice of these new understandings.

Academic productivity matters: International learning and job acquisition of Chinese PhD returnees
Ka Ho Mok and Jin Jiang
In recent years, the UK and other Western countries have witnessed an influx of international students from East Asian countries, particularly China. Less is known of how these international learning experience affects the returning students’ job acquisition prospects. This study critically examines how overseas doctoral study contributes to the employment of PhD returnees in the academic job market. Drawing on a national survey on government-funded Chinese PhD returnees, this study finds no significant “pure prestige” effect of returnees’ doctoral university, independent of individual merits. Instead, pre-employment academic productivity plays an important role in determining PhD returnees’ job placement in a top university in China. This research not only fills the research gap in the international student mobility of PhD level, but also shows the significance of talent mobility and international learning affecting PhD returnees’ career development.

Professor Paul Ashwin

Paul Ashwin is Professor of Higher Education, Lancaster University. He played a key role in creating CGHE, was a CGHE Deputy Director and led the Centre’s Graduate Experiences of Employability and Knowledge project.

Professor Ka Ho Mok

Professor Ka Ho Mok, Joshua is currently Provost and Vice President (Academic & Research) of the Hang Seng University of Hong Kong (HSUHK). Before joining HSUHK, he was the Vice President and Chair Professor of Lingnan University, Hong Kong. Since the inception of CGHE, Professor has worked closely with colleagues of the centre for promoting higher education research with focus on Asian education and development studies. He is also a Deputy Director of CGHE. Before joining Lingnan, he was the Vice President (Research and Development) and Chair Professor of Comparative Policy of The Education University of Hong Kong, and the Associate Dean and Professor of Social Policy, Faculty of Social Sciences of The University of Hong Kong. Prior to this, Professor Mok was appointed as the Founding Chair Professor in East Asian Studies and established the Centre for East Asian Studies at the University of Bristol, United Kingdom. Ka Ho Mok led CGHE Project 10, ‘UK international graduates in mass media and public perceptions: A comparative study of the UK, Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan’.