One afternoon in July, I found myself driving up the shoulder of Mount Kilimanjaro to a Tanzanian village called Marangu. There I visited a clinic where two Duke undergraduates from the Pratt School of Engineering were fixing a piece of broken dental equipment. They were living with a Tanzanian family, without familiar amenities but open to and appreciative of the vivid experiences of a different culture, and using things they had learned in Duke classrooms to try to solve problems in real-world settings.
We later drove uphill through an exquisite green landscape to Mwika Uuwo, a somewhat smaller village. There we dropped in on a classroom to observe two Duke undergraduate women teaching biology to a group of students who had come for extra classes although it was a holiday.
Campuses Abroad: Promise and Perils
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Altogether, 92 Duke undergraduates worked in Africa this past summer through the DukeEngage program, which provides opportunities for meaningful civic activities either in the United States or overseas. Duke also has faculty in Africa. I met a neurosurgeon who has outfitted Mulago Hospital’s neurosurgical theaters with surplus equipment from Duke, and who, alongside his Ugandan counterparts, is training urgently needed Ugandan medical personnel. I was privileged to participate in conversations led by a Duke Divinity School professor who is promoting dialogue in African nations trying to overcome civil violence.
My visit to Africa followed stops in Shanghai and in Kunshan, where the city is constructing a campus for Duke to offer degree programs. I also had the honor of presenting the commencement address for the first graduates from the medical school that Duke established in 2005 with the National University of Singapore. That partnership has enhanced Duke’s reputation among top medical educators across Asia, deepened our expertise in fields such as emerging infectious diseases, and provided a point of connection to other research sites, such as in India. It has also created a space for our faculty to try out new teaching formats, some of which they are now bringing back to our campus in Durham and even carrying to enhance our training efforts at Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre in Moshi, Tanzania.
These and countless other possible examples demonstrate what we mean when we talk about a university expanding its global activities and how those activities encompass various dimensions of education, research, and service. At Duke, our global directive has been most visible with the Duke-National University of Singapore Graduate Medical School and the new campus in China, but it extends to the nearly half of Duke students who now study abroad, to the interdisciplinary scholarship of the Duke Global Health Institute, and to the rich international arts scene emerging on our home campus.
Talent knows no borders, and we must draw the most creative minds—both faculty and students—from around the world to stay at the forefront of discovery. Globalization also provides a broader meaning to the “real world” experience our students need to test out and amplify what they learn in the classroom. Universities become stronger through mutually respectful global partnerships.
As Duke and other universities extend their global reach, they must be clear about their objectives, mindful of their business plans, and faithful to their principles. For instance, we have been careful as we have pursued our collaboration in China. Leaders there are looking to the West for the dimensions of education they now prize, such as interdisciplinarity, problem-based instruction, and seminar-style debate. They recognize that to approach global problems, they must not only train people in technical subjects but also instill an understanding of psychology, public policy, history, and culture.
In other words, China and other partners want what American universities can provide: broad training to engage in complex problem-solving for the larger human good. Through strategic collaborations, Duke and other American universities can help to strengthen global higher education while benefiting our own students and scholars.
As we embark on these ventures, we must be aware that some of the countries we engage with do not share our attitudes toward open inquiry, freedom of expression, or free access to information. Our intellectual culture is founded on those values, and we must insist on them wherever we go. If the Chinese or others truly want to recreate a world-class form of education, they will need to grapple with the spirit as well as the letter of our ways.
Maintaining our fundamental beliefs while embracing cultural differences will be a challenge for all of us. It will not be conflict-free. In the worst case, a Western university may need to terminate a venture. But just as we do not prevent our students from going forth for international experiences out of fear of encountering ways of living that are different from their own, so we should not let these legitimate concerns obscure the value of global expansion at the institutional level. Globalization has profoundly changed the future for our students. Whether in small villages in Africa or at new campuses in China, our students need to become comfortable with a world that now stretches far beyond our home campuses, and universities must lead the way.