Movers and Doers: International Exchange, the International Knowledge System, and Public Policy

The relationship between international knowledge exchange and the international exchange of persons, particularly through and to higher education systems, is examined. Higher education policy is discussed as one case of international knowledge exchange. Attention is directed to the following policy areas: immigration policy (particularly the McCarran-Walter Act), national security policy as it affects the exchange of persons, and the budgetary support of international exchanges and competing claims for the support of the international exchange of knowledge. Three examples of the international knowledge system in the area of higher education policy are discussed: the exchange of views among professorial organizations in North America and Europe; the nature of the process of response to conservative governments' approaches to retrenchment in the United States, Great Britain, and Europe; and the impact of American models of graduate and undergraduate education on a distance learning masters degree program operated cooperatively between the State University of New York at Buffalo and Alvan Okkoku College in Owerri, Nigeria. Implications of new modes of communication and computer technology on the international exchange of knowledge are also briefly addressed. (SW)