Conference: Comparative and International Education Society (CIES)

In March, we had a fantastic CIES conference here in Washington, D. C. CIES is the Comparative and International Education Society, which is essentially the largest international education conference in the country. It was so convenient being here in DC and I was more than glad to welcome three friends to stay with me for the conference (two from Stanford and one from Harvard).

I presented with my adviser, Dr. Maria Cseh, a poster on Global Competence Development in Higher Education in Thailand: A case study of a mid-size private university. We looked at external forces such as government policy, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and globalization and how those forces affected what the university is doing to promote global competence in their faculty and students.

The conference was a great experience and I enjoyed the conversations we had with the other presenters and participants. It’s fascinating to see how people conceptualize global competence. For example, one woman described that the word competence to her means a measuring stick and a specific ability. This contrasted with our understanding of competence in what originates as more of a state of being and dynamic capacity.

I also got to meet up with several friends from the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE) who presented at the conference as well, including Maung Nyeu.

Looking forward to more conferences and hopefully attending CIES next year in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Ozzie