Despite wide consensus among higher education leaders that U.S. universities are undergoing a process of "globalization," there is little agreement about just what globalization means, what propels it, or what intellectual, political, and ethical consequences it will bring for American higher education. There is little systematic empirical research on the range of things often described by the term globalization: the proliferation of satellite campuses and cooperative agreements between schools; the growing scale and complexity of student flows across national borders; the diffusion of institutional and curricular norms; and the "internationalization" of instructional programs, to name just a few. There is no clear social science research agenda or intellectual framework for assessing the globalization of U.S. higher education. This report describes a research project currently underway at the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) that places this predicament into historical and institutional context. Funded by multiple grants from the U.S. Department of Education International Research and Studies Program, the project is a mixed-methods study of how American universities currently organize research and instruction regarding several adjacent world regions: the Middle East, South Asia, Russia/Eurasia, and Central Asia. The project focuses on: (1) the relationship between area study programs and center; (2) the varied relationships that social science and humanities faculty have with area studies initiatives; (3) the role of language instruction generally, and specifically Title VI-funded language instruction, in the organization of university-based research and teaching; and (4) how the study of trans-regional and trans-disciplinary phenomena is accommodated within an academic infrastructure organized by region and discipline. Two consultation meetings with senior faculty and administrators from universities from across the United States at the SSRC headquarters in New York City on October 14 and 17, 2008. At each meeting attendees were provided with a broad introduction to the project's scope and design; a glimpse of empirical findings from preliminary analyses of the SSRC's data; and an overview of the theoretical equipment they are using to connect their findings with larger discussions about U.S. universities' international activities more generally. This report provides a brief summary of the initial project and the discussions of it in New York; outlines the benchmark insights that will inform SSRC's analysis going forward; and sketches their ambitions for the future of the project. The following are appended: (1) Overview of Project Methods, Research Design, & Data Collection; (2) Senior Project Staff; (3) Participants in the October 2008 Consultations; and (4) General Schedule of the 14 & 17 October Meetings. (Contains 3 footnotes.)