Papers by dieter cortvriendt
The Quality Assurance Unit (QAU) of the Flemish Universities and University Colleges Council (VLU... more The Quality Assurance Unit (QAU) of the Flemish Universities and University Colleges Council (VLUHR) is assigned to coordinate the external quality assurance of the bachelor and master programs organised by the Flemish universities and university colleges. The actual assessments are carried out by a panel of peers. In order to organize the study program assessments successfully, high levels of trust must exist between the QAU and the panels (and a number of other actors like the higher education institutions, the accreditation body and the Flemish government). In this paper, we will focus on some of the trust relations between the QAU and the programs, and more precisely on the selection of the panel of peers which carry out the assessments and which can be seen as the focal ‘mediators of trust’ of the whole assessment system. Firstly, we will address the assessment process as it is currently organized by the VLUHR. We will also spot the main actors involved in the program assessmen...
The Becoming of a Global World / 31 Actualization means contingency. Actualization, that is, what... more The Becoming of a Global World / 31 Actualization means contingency. Actualization, that is, what happens does not follow a plan of progress. Our history 'has neither departure nor arrival, origin nor destination' (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987: 293). As such, globalization may be understood as a process without begin or end. Globalization is not a process that develops in a linear fashion, to say, from 'the West to the Rest'. 11 Gellner (1964: 12-3) remarked, more than forty years ago, that 'for two centuries it has been difficult for anyone from the West to 'think about human affairs without the image of an all embracing upward growth […]. It seemed a natural conclusion from the pattern of Western history, which was generally treated as the history of humanity. Western history seems to have a certain continuity and a certain persistent upward swing […]. Emerging from the river valleys of the Middle East, the story of civilization seems one of continuous upward growth, only occasionally interrupted by plateaus or even retrogressions: history seemed to creep gently around the shores of the Mediterranean and then up to the Atlantic coast, things getting better and better. Oriental Empires, the Greeks, the Romans, Christianity, the dark ages, the Renaissance, the Reformation, industrialization […] all this is extremely familiar and still forms the background image of history for most of us.' History is not progressive; it does not develop like a ready-made plan. Rather than defining globalization as originating from a certain point, as notions like Westernization (or Americanization) imply, we have to acknowledge that 'human history did not follow a straight line […] on the contrary, at each bifurcation alternative stable states were possible, and once actualized, they coexisted and interacted with one another' (De Landa, 1997: 16). As such, it would be better to speak of becomings instead of Becoming. Becoming stresses the contingent nature of globalization, and the multiple actualizations that the de-and reterritorialization of flows bring forward. Just as human history is not marked by stages, or a plan of progress, human geography is not marked by bounded territories, but rather made of a multiplicity flows and the destratifications and restratifications they undergo (De Landa, 1997: 268). There is no original territory of globalization, no 'primordial totality that once existed, or a final one, that awaits us at some future date' (Deleuze and Guattari, 1977: 42). By withdrawing from usually modern national state centric definitions of territory we can see how de-and reterritorialization forces constitute particular time-spaces: local, national, regional and global
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Papers by dieter cortvriendt