Estes noted that Penn researchers don't always know what other professors and students are doing. The problem is that it is not focused. Each of us lives in a very decentralized economy of efforts, doing our own thing. Provost Stanley Chodorow drew a similar conclusion. We really want to establish a way for those disparate, separate units to interact with one another, to know about one another.
Communication becomes a key to coordination.
And today, the key to communication is electronic. Already, the Provost's Council on International Programs is establishing a Web page that will link to the home pages of Penn faculty and students who are conducting international research. The council is also developing a database of Penn researchers who are involved in international activities. Even when professors and graduate students are aware of international programs, there's still no guarantee that they'll participate. J. Sanford Schwartz, executive director of the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics, explained that faculty and students have limited funding and time, so they are often reluctant to undertake an international program.