In this Pope Center piece, Jesse Saffron writes about a proposal in the UNC system that would blow $400,000 on “international outreach.” The money would “help link students, faculty, and staff with regions ‘critical to the state’s economic and strategic future’” including China, India, Brazil, Mexico, and Africa.
Behold the kind of “if government doesn’t do something, it won’t happen” thinking that we get all the time from the leftist establishment. If commercial ties with specific entities in other nations make economic sense, people will discover and take advantage of them without this “global brand” initiative. All this kind of thing (e.g., the 2013 “UNC-India Summit” in Chapel Hill) does is to allow system bigwigs to bask in the light of fawning publicity, while living it up.
Save the money and concentrate on teaching students things that will be useful whether or not they might later find themselves working with foreigners.