Challenges to Academic Values and the Organization of Academic Work in a Time of Globalization

With the ongoing Bologna Process in mind, the author analyzes the effects of globalization on the academic world. In so doing, he traces the origins of globalization, arguing that it is not as new a phenomenon as one might think. He then analyzes the interactions of academic work and globalization and of academic values and globalization. Focusing on Central and Eastern Europe, the author proposes that the negative effects of the communist period on higher education in the region have stimulated a greater awareness of the fragility of traditional academic values than may be the case elsewhere, and a heightened desire to protect them. At the same time, the experience of communism (and now of transition) seems to have imparted great flexibility and pragmatism to higher education in the region as it responds to the challenges of globalization. Still, globalization is highly challenging to European higher education, East and West.