✔✔✔✔ FC here. Good day.
The principal spokesman for the Brodhead Administration, Michael Schoenfeld, has declined to confirm or deny reports that FC has received about a deal to start one -- or possibly two -- new Duke campuses in Brazil.
The reports come from two sectors of the Durham campus and from two sources: one consistently reliable and the other new and very promising. We have been unable to pin down if the location is either Rio de Janeiro or Sao Paulo -- or both.
Schoenfeld also refused to deal with information that a Deputy Fact Checker collected, indicating the administration is not announcing the deal because the rapid, unbridled expansion into at least nine other international locations all at once is already drawing heavy fire. This obviously would add new fuel.
In addition to the building of a "full research university" in Kunshan, Duke is heading toward two additional locations in China: Shanghai and Nanjing. Then there is London, Dubai, New Delhi, and St. Petersburg. And Seoul, where an executive education program is underway. And Johannesburg, for Global Academic Travel Experience (GATE) elective courses, and Global Consulting Practicums which have flown under the radar.
FC has been able to confirm that immediately after taking office as Duke's first global vice president, Greg Jones, long-time dean of the Divinity School, went to Brazil. We have confirmation that Jones and Dean Blair Sheppard, the driving force behind the grandiose aspirations of Fuqua Business School, held talks in Sao Paulo last July 13, and Rio last July 15.
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In another development, a faculty source indicates one avenue of particular concern over Kunshan is the financial estimates -- and how Duke's subsiding the new university planned there to teach Chinese is impacting upon programs in Durham. This analysis is expected to play a big role as the Academic Council decides whether to approve academic programs proposed for the backwater China city.
We have work on several major essays underway: a special report showing how risky and negative aspects of the Kunshan venture -- discussed in a secret Trustee briefing that we obtained -- were diluted in or missing from the version of the Duke Kunshan Planning Guide given the faculty. This is explosive!
We are also going to review the transcripts of all Academic Council meetings since Kunshan was first introduced, to analyze information given to the faculty through this avenue and also the accelerating concerns over the administration's plans.
We are comparing faculty consultation at Yale as that university considered a new undergraduate campus in Singapore with the Duke faculty's involvement in Kunshan.
Another essay evaluates the Yale response to charges of sexual harassment and other discrimination to Duke's.
The academic year may be ending. Our work is not.
✔Thank you for reading and supporting FC.
