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CONAHEC

CONAHEC, the Consortium for North American Higher Education Collaboration, explores expanding cross-border higher ed access in North America. WICHE and CONAHEC established a regional tuition bank whereby institutions make specified educational programs available to students from other institutions participating in the network. The program is based on multilateral “tuition swaps,” where students pay fees to their home institution and are responsible for their own travel, lodging, and other expenses. As of May 2004, 36 higher education institutions from Canada, the U.S., and Mexico are signed up to participate, offering more than 250 academic programs to prospective students in the three countries. The first exchanges began in spring 2003. There has been a tremendous increase in applications; we received a total of 80 and anticipate confirmation on approximately 50 exchanges this fall.

CONAHEC set an attendance record at its 9th North American Higher Education Conference held in March in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico. Speakers focused on the theme Discovering North American Potential: Higher Education Charts a New Course. More than 350 higher education leaders, faculty, students and international education practitioners gathered to share their experiences and establish and strengthen their connections with partner institutions. Highlights of the conference included presentations by Robert Pastor, vice president of international affairs at American University, and Julio Millán, president of the World Future Society in Mexico City.

CONAHEC and ANUIES, the Mexican Association of Universities and Higher Education Institutions, established the Chair for Mexican Comparative Higher Education at the University of Arizona. A former top-level administrator from a Mexican higher education institution will be selected each year to serve as a visiting professor at the University of Arizona, in a joint appointment between CONAHEC and the University’s Center for the Study of Higher Education. The goal is to encourage research in Mexico on higher education leadership and give the visiting professor time to reflect on his or her experiences and share those lessons with others. The first chair will arrive in Arizona in the fall of 2004. CONAHEC and the center also created a special development training program aimed at high-level executive administrators in postsecondary education this year. The first program, which will include facilitators from Mexico, the U.S. and Canada, will be held at the Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla (BUAP) in Puebla, Mexico, this summer (in the future, the program will travel to various locations throughout North America so that administrators from many geographic regions have the opportunity to take it). It will focus on strategic planning, internationalization, fundraising, and finance and curriculum.

CONAHEC and ANUIES also partnered to create the Educational Information and Resource Center for Mexicans Abroad, an initiative funded by the Mexican Ministry of Education. EDUCAMEXUS (Educational Information and Resource Center for Mexicans Abroad), was created to provide information about educational opportunities at all levels for Mexicans living abroad. In partnership with the Mexican Center for Higher Education Evaluation (CENEVAL), this June CONAHEC offered the first Mexican High School Equivalency Test in the U.S. and Canada through this new center.

In June 2004 CONAHEC's U.S.-Mexico borderlands network, called BORDER PACT, awarded $150,000 in a fourth round of seed money grants to academic institutions and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) working on projects to improve life in the borderlands. Projects typically focus on the environment, health, immigration, sustainable development, and education.

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