​What can Duke Kunshan do for you?

Duke leadership has been working for years with Wuhan University to create a liberal arts research university in China. The product of this mission, Duke Kunshan University, is now halfway through its second year. The process of its creation has not always been a smooth one, with delayed openings, concerns about academic freedom, turnover of top leadership and discussion of the toll on Duke’s resources all featuring in skepticism of Duke Kunshan.

Now in 2016, Duke Kunshan undeniably exists, having overcome some of its earlier hurdles and is working towards what was promised. Construction is all but completed, founding Master’s cohorts will graduate this spring and outlines for an innovative four-year liberal arts Bachelor’s degree are being drawn up. Duke Kunshan is supposed to be part of the fabric of Duke University, and its success, or failure, will be our own. It is therefore time to begin thinking about the incredible resource this new member of the Duke family can be while assuaging old concerns and thinking about those that lay ahead.

Many students are still skeptical of Duke Kunshan. They question the value of time spent by administrators charged with coordinating their education in Durham in establishing a campus that most will never visit. To mollify these concerns, Duke Kunshan must be accessible and present resources that Duke students are interested in taking advantage of. Limited course offerings and the muted presence of Duke Kunshan among our other study abroad options have limited undergraduate interest at Duke Kunshan though the campus is meant to be far more than just another study abroad program. Duke-based graduate students have largely been ignored in discussion of programming that would allow them to capitalize on the substantial research resources available through this collaboration. Yet new shorter length opportunities such as the duARTS DKU Artistic Cultural Spring Break Program are promising because they allow students the opportunity to feel like part of Duke Kunshan by helping to shape its future. Students from diverse degree tracks would benefit from the opportunity to explore Duke Kunshan and ease it into student consciousness. Available field sites for innovative research and teaching positions need to be further incentivized. Regional tech companies should be tapped for potential internship programs to encourage the engagement of recent graduates and current students who will bring excitement for Duke Kunshan back to Durham with them.

Dispelling remaining misconceptions about Duke Kunshan is also critical to its success. In a recent article about Duke Kunshan, the campus is described as being in a “relatively isolated location within China.” But in reality Duke Kunshan is located a quick 15 minute train ride from Shanghai, allowing easy access to a major urban center yet plenty of peace when it comes time to be a scholar. Similarly, a recurring fear is the potential for censorship or disconnection due to China’s restrictive media policies. However, in response to these fears, the Duke Kunshan campus has been equipped with networking capacity allowing scholars to directly connect to the Duke system, accessing all resources that can be accessed from a computer here in Durham. Descriptions of infrastructure, video materials and street level tours of campus and Kunshan could help students understand what their experience at Duke Kunshan would be like.

Ultimately, the vision of what DKU means for a better Duke community needs to be clearly articulated and communicated to students in a way that is relevant to their immediate concerns. Excitement about changing the lives of students around the world is admirable, but with this as part of the importance, scholars at Duke need to understand what Kunshan can do for them.