ABSTRACT
Global efforts in American higher education have two basic purposes: first, to improve the knowledge and skills of American students—as wide as possible a swathe of American students—to function adequately in an increasingly intense global environment. Second, to use the prestige of American higher education to improve the nation's standing abroad and to forge relationships, both individual and institutional, that provide mutual benefits in this vein. These purposes are, of course, far easier to express than to implement, and a number of goals and issues follow from them that form the substance of this chapter. The purposes are also unabashedly do-gooder, bound to evoke cynicism from an academic audience schooled to be skeptical; this aspect, too, must be addressed.
