Duke's Academic Council will soon be ready to officially consider
additional academic programs for Duke Kunshan University (DKU), the university's
new campus in China, the council chair said Thursday.
Speaking at the council's regular meeting, Nicholas School
Professor Susan Lozier said it will take up a resolution at its March 22
meeting to affirm the council's readiness to review new DKU programs that lead
to Duke degrees and can be reviewed within two or three years.
Duke has approved only one degree program so far for DKU, a
Fuqua School of Business master of management studies degree that includes instruction
in both Durham and Kunshan.
Lozier said she was concerned at the beginning of the school
year that faculty had not yet engaged enough with the DKU project to fully
consider additional programs there. Since then, she said, faculty have been
involved actively on DKU issues ranging from financial planning to curricula.
"Not long ago, we were like a blind hiker and our
forward steps risked going over the cliff," Lozier said. "I believe we are now in position to
take further steps with eyes wide open.
Now if we move forward we don't risk falling off but simply are taking
another step."
Lozier's comments followed presentations before the council
that reviewed DKU's mission and finances, along with a briefing from Harvard
historian William Kirby on the history of higher education in China and where
DKU fits into the current educational climate.
Kirby, whom Duke has hired to advise its project, said China's
interest in it draws on a long cultural tradition.
"It's not complicated," he said. "We are in the same world. China has a
history of borrowing from other countries.
They were doing this not much later than when American universities were
borrowing from the German model.
"Every major Chinese university is seeking to learn
from an American university in different ways, but above all what they want to
know is how we train leaders through a liberal arts education."
Five decades after the Cultural Revolution dismantled many universities,
China is now experiencing explosive growth in higher education, Kirby
said. It already has more undergraduates
than the United States and soon will have more graduate students as well.
Western educational institutions are developing various models
to engage with China. But Kirby said he
believed none has been thought through as well as DKU's. "Duke will be a
leading American presence in China," he predicted.
The key to engaging with China, Kirby said, is "to
adhere to core principles in which you believe in and which have made you
successful. In admissions, in academic
freedom, you have to keep to what made you successful."
"It's a reasonable question to ask whether it is
possible to have a liberal education in an illiberal society," he said, addressing
an issue that has come up frequently at previous faculty discussions. Kirby
said it is possible in China to have free and unfettered discussions in
universities, which contain "a level of isolation" that protects
them. Outside universities, the level of discourse continues to widen but remains
far from open, he said.
"The greater risk is not to be engaged in China," Kirby
said. "It's the fastest growing
educational environment in the world.
And the risk is in not taking enough risk. If one or two of your programs don't succeed,
it probably means you haven't been ambitious or inventive enough."
"How often do you get to create a new university? None of us were here when Duke was
founded. You have before you a blank
sheet of paper in which lovely characters can be written, and it is up to you
and your faculty to fill it in. It
should be written not without caution but also with ambition."
In a financial review of DKU, executive vice provost James
Roberts said the latest forecasts predict Duke will spend $38.4 million over
seven years. The previous forecast was
$37 million over six years.