Universiti Sains Malaysia and a new vision for Higher Education

This paper seeks to engage the issue of the way that universities can engage in civil society and build social capital and trust and why lJSM's strategy for such engagement is an important response to the problems of globalization. The quality of the social and instructional capital that is developed by universities getting involved 'at the coal face' with contemporary social problems and forging alliances in diverse ways with global civil society is a realization of the 'blue ocean' strategy of Universiti Sains Malaysia. However it is also an expression of the way USM seeks to engage the issue of 'liquid modernity' and mobility'. This has indirect influence on the quality of instructional and social capital that is necessary for a university to genuinely engage and interface with diversity.