I am reading a somewhat worrisome article in The Chronicle of Higher Education with the headline “U.S. Faculty Members Feel a Lack of Clout, International Survey Finds” (account required for access). It concerns a soon to be published study surveying faculty members in 20 different nations, as well as Hong Kong, that was conducted in 2007 and 2008. One of the study’s author’s from the Center for International Higher Education said

the study’s results…show that American faculty members remain relatively isolated from their peers elsewhere. In examining the latest data from the United States, he says, he was struck by “how behind the curve Americans are when it comes to their views of internationalization, their knowledge about what is going on academically around the rest of the world, their use of data from scholars from other countries.”

Anyone who knows me or my work is aware of my concern with the cultural isolationism of the United States and its consequences. The consequences are real and have real world implications, financial, political and social. But this article shows that there is far more to be concerned about. Good scholarship is built on that which comes before it, and without full awareness of it all, one ends up repeating that which has been done before, or simply missing out on helpful information that would advance ones own research.

The study also found that

the United States is seen as losing its advantage over many nations in terms of the perceived quality of its higher-education facilities, and that many faculty members in highly developed nations are less engaged in the affairs of their universities and see their institutions’ management as more heavy-handed than was the case in the early 1990s.

and that the number of publications refereed journals, appears to has declined slightly in the United States while rising quickly in countries like Brazil and some of the new “Asian tigers.” Moreover, American faculty are more likely to disproportionately likely to engage in research that is “socially oriented,” whereas in other places it is basic or applied research that is more common.

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The Pentagon fears a severe shortage of scientists and engineers at government laboratories could erode the military’s technological edge in developing weapons and other projects in coming years, spawning a hiring boom at military research laboratories and an expansion of scholarships, advertising campaigns, and other ways to recruit a new generation of researchers.

Quite simply there is a growing gap between the number of degrees awarded in fields like engineering, computer science, physical science, math, etc., and the number of positions available in these fields.

So now the question is whether or not the current economic crisis will exacerbate the crisis. There are two ways in which it might do so, either by making higher education even less affordable as larger numbers become unemployed or see their savings and investments devoured, or because budget cuts caused by the massive hit the endowments of far too many colleges have sustained in recent months begin to hurt the quality of education.

Technology-assisted collaboration can offer higher education a way to achieve greater efficiency and do things in a more cost-effective manner without compromising standards of education. But it takes creative thinking, planning and a serious investment of time and energy. Certainly resources must be allotted, as well, but sometimes it takes only a reallocation of existing resources. This, however, is the subject of a longer entry, perhaps at some point to come.