Back to Main Menu Faculty Exchange I have suggested that one of the real and disastrous casualties of the past era has been the declining presence of Africa as a regular reality in the lives of many American faculty. The old model of teaching in an African university is no longer possible, except perhaps in Southern Africa. Ohio State collaborates with the College of Agriculture in Swaziland. As I will mention later, the revisions of the USIA programs in Africa propose to strengthen institutional exchanges. The commentaries make it clear that most faculty feel that this kind of link is neither adequate nor in line with current realities in the universities.
Relations can be cumbersome, expensive and frustrating.
The growing forms of organization for scholars in Africa are the network and the association. On our own side, we have yet to develop comparable organizations to interface successfully. Our own professional groups are extremely large, and do not manage funding, research and study to the same degree that the African organizations do. Our own resources are localized, even though our connections with one another are far-flung. It is very hard work.