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Hoff visits Austria

UMaine president attends education seminar

By Catie Joyce

Posted on Nov. 19, 2001, at 12:00 a.m.

Recently, University of Maine President Peter S. Hoff traveled to Austria to attend an international symposium entitled “Placing Universities in a Social Context,” which was intended to help countries who are just beginning to devlop university sytems.

“The University Project [deals with] helping universities in emerging nations develop as a university and become more valuable assets to their countries,” Hoff said. “Specifically [the symposium covered] the university’s role in serving their countries.what the universities can give to their countries and states.”

The symposium is one of several of the Salzburg Seminars, which is an ongoing series of programs held at the Schloss Leopoldskron, an old castle in Salzburg, Austria. The seminar is “one of the world’s foremost international educational centers committed to broadening the perspectives of tomorrow’s leaders,” according to www.salzburgseminar.org. The purpose of the seminars is to “expand viewpoints, facilitate the establishment of worldwide professional networks and effect enlightened change in the future.” This is done by “intensive interaction among peers from diverse backgrounds in a neutral forum.”

The organization was created after World War II in order to build better relationships between America, European countries and Eastern European countries, according to Hoff.

The symposium Hoff attended was part of the Universities Project, a multi-year series within the Salzburg Seminars. The University Project “focuses on issues of university management, administration, finances and governance,” according to the seminars’ web site. It aims to “[advance] higher education reform.”

Participants of the symposium attend by invitation only. Three years ago, Hoff was involved with the Kellog Commission on the future of American universities. A representative from the seminars spoke to the group and invited the commission participants to this symposium.

Twelve other Americans attended along with others from European countries.

Hoff spoke as a panelist for “Transforming the Curriculum: Knowledge for What?”

The topic of transforming the curriculum is a favorite of Hoff’s.

“I spoke on liberal learning, to develop professional skills, for society, for self,” he said. “I gave the basics.”

The symposium was geared towards growing nations, to teach them how to run strong universities.

“I really sort of saw some lights go on, we take for granted concepts of liberal education and it was a new concept [for the other nations] that [universities] are there to serve,” said Hoff. “You could see the countries never really looked at it this way. It was very exciting.”

Hoff said he also gained new perspectives on the universities of other nations.

“When you sit in your own back yard you have your own assumptions of what’s good and what works, but it’s different when you’re seeing another culture, it may not work that way,” he said.

Hoff said UMaine is connected on a world-wide level and this symposium is one example of that.

“I was glad I went. It was a long trip and took a lot of time, but you have to do something like that from time to time to keep up with the world.”

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