Globally Engaged Universities and the Changing Context of Academic Citizenship

Based on a series of rich case studies conducted at four universities around the world, the authors explore and further elaborate on the concept of academic citizenship. Specifically, they discuss the way globalization presents new challenges and opportunities for students and faculty as academic citizens. In examining academic life and citizenship at Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, the University of California, Los Angeles, the University of Buenos Aires, and Central European University, the authors address key facets to globalization, including most notably the power of global capitalism to refashion the nature of academic life in all regions studied. Of particular interest to the authors are the creative ways in which students and faculty engage as academic citizens in the face of powerful global forces and what such forms of engagement might suggest for contemporary universities seeking to be socially transformative.