While Dodington relishes recapturing the city's past glory, he is nevertheless drawn to the dynamic changes in Shanghai, now home to some 20 million residents -- a far cry from his hometown hidden in the cornfields of central Texas with a population of 953.

CNN: Americans fall for rising Shanghai

They are biased towards bigger universities, which tend to be better known and to produce more research. (This may have helped Argentina's UBA, whose glory days are in the past.) But what they do capture matters.

ECONOMIST: Universities in Latin America

Of course, Lars Nyberg, the thin, deliberate Swede who is NCR's 46- year-old chief executive, knows you can't live on past glory.

FORBES: Too little and probably too late