Fuqua dean Blair Sheppard speaks at the global ventures panel. Photo credit: Jared Lazarus

Durham, NC - Two Duke leaders articulated last week the value and purpose of some of the university's international initiatives, while acknowledging potential pitfalls in such efforts.

"Our objective is not to go abroad, but to reinvent the business school," said Fuqua Dean Blair Sheppard, in speaking of the school's plans for partner campuses on six continents. "We need to de-parochialize Fuqua."

Sheppard and Sandy Williams, senior adviser for international strategy at Duke, spoke as part of a conversation with Duke Chapel Dean Sam Wells called "Duke's Global Ventures: Collaboration or Colonialism?" Wells posed questions such as, how do international partnerships relate to the university's core mission? And, what mistakes should Duke avoid in pursuing them?

About 40 people attended the April 1 event, hosted by the Kenan Institute for Ethics and the Chapel, in the Alumni Memorial Commons Room in the Divinity School.

In explaining Fuqua's international plan, Sheppard said the school was responding to today's worldwide nature of business, and not simply trying to lay claim to foreign countries.

"You take on a view based on the place where you spend a majority of your time," he said. "Therefore if you send significant time in other places, you take on other views."

Williams cited the rapid spread of disease across national borders as one reason to form international partnerships in medicine. In the case of the Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School Singapore, Williams said the partnership has become "best in class" because it is a good match.

"They were not producing doctors who were impatient with the current status of medicine; they were not producing the inventors and the scientists and the drivers of new technology," he said. "They wanted that kind of entrepreneurial energy, and of all the U.S. medical schools, they chose Duke -- . We believe we are delivering that to them."

Both men acknowledged missteps are possible.

Sheppard said in Fuqua's announcement of its initiative it inadvertently used performance groups, including scantily clad Indian dancers, that reinforced superficial cultural stereotypes.

Williams said universities need to be wary of "shallow franchising agreements," which lend a school's name to a project but not its qualities. "What Duke does abroad should be fully Duke," he said.

In responding to the presentations, professors Karla Holloway and Ranjana Khanna offered reflections.

Holloway, James B. Duke Professor of English and a professor of law, said Duke ventures in other countries should follow the model of international bodies such as the United Nations.

"Unless we think about places where -- the United Nations is an example -- where our vote counts the same as the vote of our colleague next to us, then I think we are likely to repeat the forms of colonialism," she said.

Khanna, Margaret Taylor Smith Director of Women's Studies, cautioned against initiatives that enhance Duke's reputation and appease a host government but forget a university's fundamental purpose.

"The university is not about modeling good citizens, it's about asking difficult questions about the truth," she said.