Duke Kunshan University: A Case Study in Internationalizing Higher Education

Opening to students in August 2014, Duke Kunshan University (DKU) is a partnership between Duke University, Wuhan University and the city of Kunshan, Jiangsu province. It will initially offer several graduate degree programs as well as semester-long programs for undergraduates for students from around the world.

At a National Committee program held at the Henry Luce Foundation on March 6, 2014, Mary Brown Bullock, founding executive vice chancellor of DKU, discussed Duke Kunshan University in the context of the globalization of higher education.

Mary Brown Bullock was appointed founding executive vice chancellor of Duke Kunshan University in September 2012. The former president of Agnes Scott College and a scholar of U.S.–China relations, Dr. Bullock serves as the chief academic and administrative officer of Duke Kunshan University, a joint venture among Duke University, Wuhan University and the city of Kunshan, China.

A national leader in higher education, philanthropy, and U.S.–China relations, Dr. Bullock has worked to increase intellectual exchanges between the United States and China since the late 1970s, when she served as director of the Committee on Scholarly Communications with the People’s Republic of China at the National Academy of Science. Bullock is a senior scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and served from 2007 until 2012 as a distinguished visiting professor of China Studies at Emory University. She is chair of the China Medical Board and serves on the boards of the Henry Luce Foundation, the National Committee on U.S.–China Relations, the Asia Foundation, the Harvard-Yenching Institute, the National Humanities Center and Genuine Parts Company. Dr. Bullock’s latest book, The Oil Prince’s Legacy: Rockefeller Philanthropy in China, was published in June 2011 by the Woodrow Wilson Center Press and Stanford University Press. It is now in its third printing and will be translated and published in China.

As president of Agnes Scott College from 1995 until 2006, Dr. Bullock implemented a strategic plan which increased the faculty and student body and transformed the historic campus with a $125 million building program. She was a director of the American Council on Education and served as chair of the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities and the Women’s College Coalition. Prior to serving as a college president, Bullock was the director of the Asia Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

Dr. Bullock graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Agnes Scott College and received her M.A. and Ph.D. in Chinese history from Stanford University. She and her husband, George, maintain a residence in Atlanta and relocated to Kunshan in spring 2013.