...author, higher education and public policy expert, scholar-in-residence Ben Wildavsky is a senior fellow in research and policy at the Kauffman Foundation and author of THE GREAT BRAIN RACE: How Global Universities Are Reshaping the World (Princeton University Press, 2010). He joined the Kauffman Foundation following an 18-year career as a writer and editor specializing in education and public policy. Most recently he was education editor of U.S. News & World Report, where he was the top editor of America's Best Colleges and America's Best Graduate Schools and oversaw several award-winning cover stories.

Previously, Mr. Wildavsky was budget, tax, and trade correspondent for National Journal, higher education reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle, and executive editor of the Public Interest. His articles and reviews have also appeared in The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Publishers Weekly, Washington Monthly, New Republic, The Christian Science Monitor, The Weekly Standard, Commentary, and other publications. He blogs regularly for The Chronicle of Higher Education’s new global edition.

As a consultant to national education reformers, Ben Wildavsky has written and edited several influential reports, including "A Test of Leadership: Charting the Future of Higher Education”, which was issued in September 2006 by the Secretary of Education’s Commission on the Future of Higher Education. In addition to numerous media appearances, he has spoken at Google, the National Academies, the American Council on Education, the Committee for Economic Development, the Association of American Universities, and many other organizations.

Mr. Wildavsky graduated from Yale University (Phi Beta Kappa, summa cum laude). He was a media fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution in 2004, 2005, and 2006, and a visiting fellow at Israel’s Shalem Center in the summer of 2009. He is currently a guest scholar at the Brookings Institution.

Ben Wildavsky is available for keynotes, seminars and residencies through the MasterMedia Speakers Bureau.

For more information (articles, reviews, sample chapter, videos) on Ben Wildavsky, go to www.greatbrainrace.com

Speaker Testimonials
September 28, 2010

Ben was a home run! He had a big impact on the group's thinking and insights. It could not have been a more effective presentation.

Thanks for all of your help, Tony. I hope our paths cross again soon.

Cheers,

Doug

Douglas Langdon, President, The Anvil Group, for the American Chemical Society

Ben was a wonderful addition to our Authors@Google series. The audience was engaged from beginning to end.
Maggie Johnson, Director of Education and University Relations, Google.

Ben Wildavsky is a knowledgeable and convincing speaker about the impact of globalization on higher education across the world. When he addressed a seminar-style gathering of Stanford University trustees, he impressed us all with his deep understanding of the area, his compelling delivery, and his willingness to engage in extensive Q&A with a diverse collection of business, education, and foundation leaders. I recommend him highly.
Steven Denning, Chairman, General Atlantic LLC; trustee, Stanford University

It would be enough for most scholars to write an important and scintillating book about the guiding issue for America's future economic development. But Ben Wildavsky's The Great Brain Race is witty and wise and accessible at the same time. On the platform, Wildavsky's humor sparkles and draws his audience engagingly into a deeply important subject lightly and deftly. Our audience became an amen corner for his artful analysis.
Crosby Kemper, III, Director, The Kansas City Public Library

Ben Wildavsky’s talk to the Committee for Economic Development was perfect in every respect–informative, engaging and thought-provoking. It was extremely well-received by our board leadership, a group of CEOs and public policy leaders who understand that the global race for talent has enormous implications for the competitiveness of the economy and the strength of our business enterprises.
Charles Kolb, President, Committee for Economic Development

Ben Wildavsky is an engaging speaker with a message every leader with an interest in higher education policy and internationalization needs to hear. To remain at the top, America must be aware of the innovations and trends among our international competitors and partners.
Molly Corbett Broad, President, American Council on Education


Reviews and Endorsements of THE GREAT BRAIN RACE

"Comprehensive and fascinating. . . . [Wildavsky] reports on American universities, notably NYU, branching out internationally; on foreign governments, like China's, spending vast sums to improve their own institutions, partly to attract scholars and students from abroad; on for-profit businesses, like Laureate and the Washington Post Co.'s Kaplan Inc., planting campuses in remote global locations. . . . This is Mr. Wildavsky's major argument. The globalization of education is producing what he calls a 'free trade in minds'--beneficial not only to countries sending their students abroad and countries accepting them but also, through positive externalities, to the broader world."
James K. Glassman, The Wall Street Journal

"Readable, fast-paced . . . The global race to attract the top talent among both staff and students is affecting the academy across the globe. . . . As a description of the state of play on all these issues in the summer of 2009 (approximately), the book is wonderfully successful."
Sir Howard Newby, Times Higher Education

"Academic globalisation has gone into overdrive in the modern university. Some of this is along familiar lines–academics collaborating with ever more foreign colleagues and sabbatical-seekers contriving to spend ever more time abroad. But Mr Wildavsky demonstrates that globalisation is now much more complicated than just cross-border collaboration spiced up with junkets. This is a fascinating story."
The Economist

"[Wildavsky] tells an engaging story about the ways in which global universities are 'reshaping the world' [His] style is gripping and urgent. His point that the forces of globalization will profoundly shape the future of higher education cannot be ignored. Not everyone will share Wildavsky's faith that a 'free trade in mind' will lead to equitable, or economically beneficial, outcomes. However, we must all grapple with his view knowledge is a commodity, and universities, if they wish to survive, must treat it as such."
Adam R. Nelson, Nature

"Wildavsky does a fine job of giving contour to the diffuse and multifarious phenomena that comprise the ongoing globalisation of academia. . . . Wildavsky is forthright about his enthusiasm for what he calls a new 'free trade in minds', and he is refreshingly skeptical of all the knee-jerk rhetoric purporting to warn that America and other western powers are 'falling behind'."
John Gravois, The National

"Intriguing...In our comfortable spot at the top of the world's higher ed pyramid, we are ignoring one of the most powerful trends of the 21st century -- a growing free trade in great minds. Wildavsky, a senior fellow in research and policy at the Kauffman Foundation, argues that this will make this era more innovative, and more prosperous, than any that human civilization has seen."
Jay Mathews, The Washington Post

"As a peek into fast-evolving trends in global or transnational education that are increasingly consuming the minds of university presidents, it's extremely good, and its educated-but-breezy Atlantic style of writing, so rare in higher education books, make it a pleasure to read."
Alex Usher, Globe and Mail

"In insightful, straightforward, and accessible writing, [Wildavsky] discusses the strategic value of universities extending their influence and brand throughout the world, noting that 'knowledge changes the world.'...Readers who are relatively unfamiliar with the globalization of higher education will appreciate this, while seasoned global educators will welcome its complete and compelling picture of how postsecondary education benefits a nation’s livelihood and economy. A worthy addition to libraries with larger international education collections and institutions with study abroad programs and/or foreign campuses."
Elizabeth Connor, Library Journal

"In the end, The Great Brain Race is very convincing: the world is a far better place when we embrace the transnational flow of people and ideas, limit the urge to engage in academic protectionism, and expand the reach of the global meritocracy."
Andrew Kelly, The American

"Provides an informative, early-days assessment of a new phenomenon: 'free trade in minds.' Acknowledging missteps and problems, he claims, with a bow to author Thomas Friedman, that an increasingly flat academic world will bring unprecedented economic, social, and political benefits, innovative research, and spread meritocractic values to emerging nations."
Glenn C. Altschuler, The Boston Globe

"The Great Brain Race is a timely wake-up call."
Diana Furchtgott-Roth, Real Clear Markets

"Superb....For educators, it's the equivalent of Friedman's World Is Flat and carries much the same message: Higher education (and there are signs that K-12 is following behind) is no longer confined by national boundaries, much less campus walls. At least at its upper echelons, it's now an international industry, serving an international market, populated by globe-trotting people...Ponder the implications. Meanwhile, read this book."
Chester E. Finn, Jr., The Education Gadfly

“Ben Wildavsky has given us the most thorough and penetrating account to date of how globalization is transforming higher education around the world. The details are rich and compelling, and Wildavsky's judgments are, in my opinion, unerring."
Richard C. Levin, president, Yale University

"In this masterful account, Ben Wildavsky documents the emergence of a global academic marketplace that will inevitably kindle protectionist anxieties in the established powers but that will also spur research and innovation, boost economic growth, and solidify meritocractic values in emerging nations. At last this aspect of globalization gets the attention it deserves."
Sebastian Mallaby, Council on Foreign Relations

"The Great Brain Race takes the reader to university campuses around the globe in order to powerfully make the case that open borders are as and perhaps more important in education as they are in trade and economics. You can't understand the way the world will work in this coming century without understanding the phenomenon Wildavsky reveals here. The Great Brain Race is an enormous contribution to the discussion."
Judy Woodruff, PBS Newshour

"No leader in a global business can ignore the increasingly international brain exchange that this book describes. Wildavsky convincingly contends that the spread of academic excellence internationally and a free trade in minds is to be celebrated rather than feared. This is a must read for anyone in the global race for talent."
Andrew Witty, CEO of GlaxoSmithKline

"Ben Wildavsky has written an engaging primer on the world of international higher education."
Philip G. Altbach, Director of the Center for International Higher Education, Boston College


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