June 25, 2016

2016 SECU Blog from Abroad – Day 5

UGA students participate in a simulation exercise in which teams were asked to review and adjust the admissions standards for their assigned universities in the fictitious country of Imaginalia

By: Torie Johnson
SECU (Twitter: @TheSECU)

Friday, June 24, 2016 — Use Your Imagination

The University of Georgia’s Institute of Higher Education summer seminar in the Netherlands has ended, and we are thrilled to have had an opportunity to participate with the UGA graduate students.

The final component of the program was a simulation exercise in which teams of students were asked to review and adjust the admissions standards for their assigned universities in the fictious country of Imaginalia. They were given important details about the universities and were strongly encouraged to use the information they had gleaned from the week’s presentations on higher education in a host of European nations to shape their decision-making.

To succeed in the game, as it was also described by Prof. Jon File from the Centre for Higher Education Policy Studies (CHEPS) from the University of Twente, teams needed to consider cost implications in increasing or decreasing enrollments, labor market trends related to certain programs, past student performance and the university mission in making their recommendations to the Imaginalia Minister of Education.

Although there were no right or wrong answers in the exercise, CHEPS facilitators were quick to point out instances in which American practices infiltrated the team’s approaches in ways that might have been harmful in Imaginalia’s environment or impracticable in the European context.

Following the simulation, both CHEPS and UGA representatives offered final remarks (including clarifying expectations for the students’ final assignment) and left the students to explore the city of Haarlam before returning to the U.S., and to the remainder of their own academic program.