Duke’s Global Ventures: Collaboration or Colonialism?”
Public Ethics Symposium
April 1, 2009

The 2009 Public Ethics Symposium tackled the topic of the globalization of higher education by examining Duke’s own international presence. It addressed the implications of exporting America’s higher education system as Duke and other universities across the nation work to expand their global presence by creating international outposts of their individual home campuses.

Panel participants:
Blair Sheppard, Dean of the Fuqua School of Business
R. Sanders Williams, Senior Vice Chancellor of Duke Medicine and Senior Advisor for International Strategy for Duke University
Ranjana Khanna, Margaret Taylor Smith Director of Women’s Studies and Professor of English and Women’s Studies
Karla Holloway, James B. Duke Professor of English and Professor of Law

Moderators:
Sam Wells, Dean of Duke Chapel
Noah Pickus, Nannerl O. Keohane Director of the Kenan Institute for Ethics.

Download an edited transcript of this event (pdf).

The symposium was hosted by the Kenan Institute for Ethics and Duke Chapel. It was made possible by support from the Matt and Susan Mackowski Fund.

In recent years Duke has made a number of ventures into worlds well beyond its North Carolina home. Some of these are tentative and rest primarily on individual faculty or student initiative. Some are strategic and corporate, and involve the vision and identity of one or more schools or the university as a whole. These ventures raise three kinds of questions.

Some are simply requests for information. What is Duke Medicine up to in Singapore? How did it come about? Is it a time-limited venture or a permanent one? What is the Fuqua School of Business involved in in India and China? Was it invited or did it make the first move? Is it profit-making or benevolent, or some combination of the two?

Some questions are skeptical. If Duke has a complex relationship with its own city of Durham, how does it avoid some of these complexities being replicated in contexts where wealth disparities may be even more troubling? How does Duke avoid being “colonial”? Will such ventures distract Duke from its core purpose, or are they indications that Duke no longer has something that could be called a core purpose?

Some questions arise from following the trajectory of these ventures more sympathetically. What happens when Duke in its ventures abroad encounters value conflicts or is asked to endorse practices that would be unacceptable at home? How do those closely involved with these ventures infuse wisdom back to the university in Durham? Does the nature of “Duke” significantly change when it is not located in one tightly defined geographical area?

Download a flyer for this event (pdf).

View coverage of this event:
This Month at Duke (pdf)
Duke Today

Listen to the audio of this panel on Duke iTunesU.