Here's an excerpt from Inside Higher Education's coverage:
...participants discussed the implications of that figure and other trends and trajectories not only in student mobility, but in scholar and institutional mobility, as well. Participants often described the three phenomena as interconnected, with scholar mobility driving institutional mobility and institutional mobility driving student mobility.
Sabine O'Hara, executive director of the Council for International Exchange of Scholars and vice president of IIE, described scholar mobility as "maybe a little overlooked" in terms of its impact on students and the overall international character of a college.
Her chapter in the book cites data from a 2007 study at Seton Hall University finding significant correlations between time spent abroad and the international content of a faculty member's teaching and research. "Faculty who spent one to two years abroad are almost twice as likely to incorporate international themes in their courses as those who spent no time abroad; and faculty members who spent more than two years abroad were nearly three times as likely to incorporate international perspectives into their courses. Faculty members who spent time abroad are also three to five times more likely to have a research agenda that is international in scope. In fact, time spent abroad proved more influential than being foreign-born or than experiencing institutional pressures to internationalize."
Yet, problematically for U.S. faculty members, they're among the least mobile worldwide, ranking last among 14 countries on measures like percentage of articles published in a foreign country or co-written with foreign colleagues.