As global forces sweep across every aspect of American life, from the auto industry to entertainment, Duke needs to get in front of the dramatic changes still awaiting the country's universities.
"Higher education in the 21st century is going to be very different from that in the 20th," says Greg Jones, who recently stepped down as the divinity school's dean to oversee Duke's global strategy. "We have to acknowledge that there will be many transformations both domestically and globally in how colleges and universities understand our mission, our constituencies, and our challenges and opportunities."
Duke must become much more than a North Carolina institution with some outposts in other countries, according to Jones, who holds positions as both vice president and vice provost in the new Office of Global Strategy and Programs. Instead, Duke needs to become truly global in its outlook and operations, even as it remains fully committed to and engaged in its primary home in Durham and North Carolina.
In an interview this week with Duke Today, Jones traced his own global interests from a childhood filled with international experiences to his scholarly research on reconciliation and justice issues in conflict-torn societies. Excerpts from the interview follow below:
Q: How are international initiatives transforming higher education?
Jones: For two centuries, the dominant model of higher education has been the idea of the research university as developed at the University of Berlin. This is not a model that in the future is going to be functional as the only or primary identity for higher education.
The new model will continue to emphasize research university strengths such as cutting-edge research and undergraduate, graduate and professional education. But it also will be linked to a broader sense of education throughout life. It will be far less siloed and far more theme- and problem-centered. There will be far more linkages across cultures.
Q: What do you think Duke will look like 40 or 50 years in the future?
Jones: Our trajectory is to become a global research university where Duke is a network of institutions distributed in the major regions of the world. I would anticipate there would be far more education occurring in multiple settings within and across degree programs, and we would be doing both degree and non-degree programs globally.
The model for major universities will be more analogous to a multinational NGO than to a stand-alone institution based in a particular location. I think that's what is particularly creative about Duke's strategy. There are fundamental qualities to Duke's character, such as knowledge in the service of society and problem-based interdisciplinary and interschool initiatives, that position us to envision a global identity. That is very different from what most academic institutions are focusing on, which is to establish a branch campus or just a few cooperative programs.
Q: On a day-to-day basis, what will be the key responsibilities of your office?
Jones: One issue will be coordination. There have been a lot of international programs that bubble up from our entrepreneurial faculty, units, and schools, and coordinating those activities is very important. We've created a map on global.duke.edu to create a visible place for people to go to find out what projects are going on in a country. I've known of faculty who are working in the same country and don't know about the others' projects.
Secondly, as global issues become more important, this office's job is to build greater capacity to have the discussions we need and to implement our strategy and programs. We need to put more people in the conversation and increase our ability to global administrative operations.
And the third thing for our office is to help execute our plans in those regions that become central to our university strategy - - China, India and others. It's incumbent upon us to identify and cultivate new initiatives there. I'll work with the deans,institute leaders, and faculty to say, we have an opportunity here, would you like to be involved?
Q: Are people at Duke already talking about the changes you've been describing?
Jones: This is an issue we need to talk about far more extensively, but there are already many conversations happening on campus. For example, look at the Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore and the way they use team-based learning. Those ideas are coming back to Durham, and now there are conversations within the medical school about how we use here what we are learning in Singapore.
It occurs at Fuqua, where they're talking about what it means to be a global business school. And it occurs at the Global Health Institute. Our global health focus is intrinsically thematic and problem-centered, bringing different people into the conversation in a fresh way across both Duke Medicine and the rest of the university Similar examples exist across departments, units, and schools.
There's a recent book called the Great Brain Race about higher education's international initiatives. What struck me was for many international efforts at other colleges and universities, there might be a great brain race, but it's not clear what the finish line looks like or what the track is. So you have a lot of people running, but there's not a lot of coherence. I hope what Duke will do is engage in discussion about what a university ought to look like in 25 years and 50 years. I'm not sure what that is in any detail, but there are clear opportunities and trends.
In 1900, the rankings of the world's great universities would include a lot of European institutions and a sprinkling of American ones. In 2000, most institutions on that list were American with a handful of European and the emergence of a few Asian schools. In the 21st century, the best universities could well be outside of America and Europe unless we recognize the trends and rise to the challenges.
Q: In a time of tight economic budgets, how does Duke expand internationally without overreaching?
Jones: We're not going to be able to reallocate Duke's budget in significant ways, nor should we try to do so. We have to do this through discovering new partnerships and resources, so we're growing the pie rather than being in a zero sum game. We can't tell schools they have to cut back on core areas and programs to go after what might seem to be an exotic opportunity.
On the other hand, I really believe there are significant people and funders outside and inside the US who recognize that the great challenges the world faces - energy for one - require a university to address these at the intersection of disciplines ... not to see it as an environmental problem or as a business problem or as a health problem or as an engineering problem or an ethics problem, but at the intersection of these disciplines. The institutions that do this will generate the most resources. Even in a bad economy there is money to be found, but we have to be creative in identifying the possibilities.
Q: What is the message for Duke students and faculty?
Jones: Duke's global strategy is a continuation of what has made Duke strong. We will preserve what has made us excellent. We will improve our research, education and outreach in ways that will enhance our identity. The phrase I like to use is traditioned innovation. We will explore new ways but preserve the fundamental character of what always has made Duke an excellent institution.
We want students and faculty and staff to be part of these conversations. There's no one blueprint for how to do this. And there will be failures. There will be things that won't work out the first time, but the greatest risk is not to persevere. The only way to truly fail is not to persevere and not learn from your mistakes.