Back in the 1960s and 1970s, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was in the university-building business. The elite institute is back in the university-building business. In addition to the thousands of faculty research collaborations around the globe, the university over the past five years has once more engaged in ambitious efforts to…

American colleges have to be in India. After all, no other country in this century, save China, is likely to be as important geopolitically, financially, demographically, or culturally. Globally savvy students ought to study here. There are research opportunities for political scientists and public-health specialists, economists, and…

Many college leaders are coming to understand that, in a global economy, they need to produce graduates and develop faculty members with strong international skills. The recognition has led them to take new, more deliberate approaches to work abroad. In the past, individual faculty members have had connections with colleagues overseas, but those…

After decades of neglect, African universities have become the focus of intense interest by U.S. universities, foundations, and donor agencies convinced that without stronger higher education, the continent's development prospects will remain bleak. This attention is notably different from such efforts in the past in sub-Saharan Africa, which have…

King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, the ambitious $10-billion research institution that Saudi Arabia plans to open in 2009, has signed agreements with three leading universities to help it design a curriculum and hire faculty members. The agreements, with Stanford University, the University of California at Berkeley, and the…