Duke University, Wuhan University and the city of Kunshan, China, have appointed experienced senior academic leaders to serve as chancellor and executive vice chancellor of Duke Kunshan University, the three parties announced Thursday.
Liu Jingnan, former president of Wuhan University and a widely respected scholar and scientist, will serve as chancellor of Duke Kunshan University (DKU). Mary Brown Bullock, former president of Agnes Scott College and a scholar of U.S.-China relations, has been appointed as executive vice chancellor.
Liu joined the faculty of Wuhan Technical University of Survey and Mapping in 1986 and has been a member of the Wuhan University faculty since the two universities merged in 2000. He served as president of Wuhan University from 2003 until 2008. As president, Liu oversaw significant growth in the size and stature of the university's faculty, fostered an interdisciplinary academic atmosphere, and promoted creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship in undergraduate and graduate education. Under his leadership, the university instituted successful school-level initiatives to improve academic programs and student life, and implemented financial management reforms throughout the university.
A leading scholar of geospatial imaging, Liu is also a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and has worked and lectured extensively around the world. He is a member of the Science and Technology Commission of China's Ministry of Education, is vice-chair of the Hubei Association for Science and Technology and is vice-director of Hubei Communications Society.
Bullock earned her Ph.D. in Chinese history at Stanford University. In the late 1970s, just as educational exchanges with China were beginning, she served as director of the Committee on Scholarly Communications with the People's Republic of China, sponsored by the American Council of Learned Societies, the Social Science Research Council and the National Academy of Sciences. She is a senior scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, was the director of the Asia Program there, and from 2007 until 2012 served as a distinguished visiting professor of China studies at Emory University.
As president of Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Ga., from 1995 until 2006, Bullock implemented a strategic plan that increased the faculty and student body and transformed the historic campus with a $125 million building program. Bullock currently serves as chair of the China Medical Board and as a director of the Henry Luce Foundation, the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, the Asia Foundation and the Harvard-Yenching Institute.
As executive vice chancellor, Bullock will be the university's senior academic and administrative officer, responsible for planning and delivering academic programs of world-class quality at DKU.
"With the additions of Chancellor Liu and Executive Vice Chancellor Bullock, we have created a senior leadership team that is uniquely qualified to carry out our guiding vision of DKU as an elite global institution," said Duke President Richard H. Brodhead. "Their combined experience as leaders in higher education in China and the U.S. will provide the necessary expertise to move DKU forward."
Duke University also has appointed Nora Bynum as vice provost for Duke Kunshan University and China initiatives. Bynum previously served as both director of global strategy and associate vice provost for global strategy and programs, managing Duke's role in the partnership to create DKU. A Duke alumna and adjunct associate professor at Duke's Nicholas School of the Environment, Bynum has worked in international higher education program development in the Americas, Asia and Africa for more than 15 years.
In August 2012 China's Ministry of Education granted preliminary approval for the creation of DKU, a joint venture of Duke, Wuhan and the city of Kunshan. More information about DKU is available at: http://spotlight.duke.edu/dukeinchina/.