Founding of CIHE

Founding of the Center for International Higher Education (CIHE) at Boston College.

Emergence of the field

Ford Foundation support in the early years of the Center for International Higher Education (CIHE).​

Nothing beyond Beethoven

“My view generally speaking is that any composer post Ludvig van Beethoven is not interesting, and I would not listen to it voluntarily.” – Phil

Speak to a broader audience

“I’ve always thought that was very important to engage with a broader higher ed audience and if possible, even in broader general audience around something which I think I knew about, which is higher education.” – Phil

Get real

“I also think there are other stakeholders for higher education that we’re not even considering yet. Think that’s going to be kind of a next level set of considerations to have for the future.” – Gerardo

Advocate for open access to knowledge​

“We were committed from the first that it should be free, that access to international higher education should not cost anything to anybody.” – Phil

Take a chance on technology

In the early days of the internet, I mean the very early days, one of my doc students came to me and said, ‘Hey, Phil, we should put this on the internet and have a website.’ – Phil

Evolve leadership to new realities

“We have shifted from a one director structure to a distributed leadership structure. We say this all the time, the center is the network… the network is going to continue no matter what. “ – Rebecca

See smallness as a strength

“They were really surprised, always when they saw that this was our office… but we always then said, it might look like a weakness, but it is a strength.” – Hans

Mentor the next generation of scholars​

“That was the case when Phil was the director. That was the case when Hans was the director. It’s the case now, and I think it will always be the case because the next generation is involved.” –Rebecca