The Fuqua School of Business will team up with Frankfurt University's newly-created business school to offer a dual degree beginning in June 2005.
The terms of the partnership have yet to be fully negotiated, but Fuqua officials expect to admit a 45-person class to the 22-month program. Students enrolled in the Frankfurt program will graduate with two degrees, one from each school.
Fuqua initially planned to offer a joint degree, in which Frankfurt University's Goethe Business School and Fuqua would administer a single degree with both schools' names. Under the originally negotiated contract, each school would have taught half of the classes under the supervision of a joint curriculum committee.
Such a joint degree would have been the first at Duke and would have required several levels of University authorization.
"When we looked for University approval, we saw that there were many other issues involved," said Richard Staelin, deputy dean of Fuqua, "and consequently we thought it best to postpone making any commitments to a joint degree."
The new agreement for a dual degree stipulates that Duke faculty teach 75 percent of the classes. Graduates will receive two diplomas, one from each institution. Duke can exert more control over a dual degree than a joint degree, which means the two business schools will not have equal status in the program.
"Our partners like to be treated as equal partners, and as long as Duke is saying they have to teach three quarters, it's not an equal partnership," Staelin said.
Provost Peter Lange initially supported the proposal for a joint degree. In an April 5 letter to Academic Council Chair Nancy Allen, Lange wrote the joint degree proposal had his "full endorsement."
At the most recent Academic Council meeting, however, Lange announced that the University needed to examine theoretical issues such as the control the University could exert over teaching and degree standards, the extent of the involvement of the partner institution and the quality control of the program.
"We will have a set of issues to address, which I think we'll do better addressing in principle than addressing around a specific program approval, as happened to have become the case with this Fuqua plan," Lange told the council May 6.
A dean's council will examine joint degrees next fall.
Lange said after the meeting that discussions with Academic Council members and with President Nan Keohane led him to reconsider his support until the University considered joint degrees more carefully. "I learned some things subsequently about the history of joint degree programs at Duke," he said.
Fuqua began working with Frankfurt University in 2003, near the time flagging enrollments and financial difficulties forced a Frankfurt-based, satellite campus of Fuqua to close--leaving a gap in the business school's European offerings.
The school plans to establish at least three collaborative degree programs over the next seven years in order to expand its international influence and presence.
The dual degree program with Frankfurt University will serve as a European anchor and a pilot project before Fuqua increases its collaboration to the same level in places like Seoul, South Korea, where a similar Fuqua program already exists.
"It's easier for your first program to work with a culture you're familiar with," Staelin said. "We understand western Europe better than we understand Asia."
Working closely with other institutions defrays the cost of operating programs abroad because the University can use the partner's fixed assets, such as buildings. It also helps bolster recruitment efforts because local universities generally have greater brand recognition in their own countries.
In addition, foreign universities often have different pay scales than U.S. universities, and splitting teaching between faculties keeps costs at local market levels. A joint degree is less expensive to administer than a dual degree because a greater teaching responsibility falls to the foreign institution's faculty, which is usually cheaper than the U.S. rate. In general, business degrees in Europe are about half the price of U.S. degrees.
Although Fuqua has tabled the joint degree proposal for the moment, the school will continue to pursue such collaboration after the University establishes the parameters for joint degrees.
"It's our hope that Duke University will allow us to offer a joint degree," Staelin said. "Until they do, we will offer a dual degree."
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