At a brief meeting Thursday, the Academic Council voted unanimously to approve four new graduate degrees.
The council also voted to officially designate the African and African American Studies Program a department.
"The Board of Trustees meets [Friday] and will be acting on each of these items," said Paul Haagen, chair of the council and professor of law. All of the proposals still need the board's approval to take effect.
Faculty offered no questions or comments on most of the items, which were presented at the council's last meeting Nov. 16.
A few professors addressed inquiries, however, to Dr. Sandy Williams, dean of the School of Medicine and vice chancellor for academic affairs, about the implementation and size of his school's proposed program.
The medical school already has full approval to develop a doctor of medicine program with the National University of Singapore. Now, the council and the Board of Trustees are voting only to approve the offering of a "truly joint" degree from both Duke and NUS, Williams noted.
Students in the Singapore-based program will follow a medical curriculum identical to Duke's. With a joint degree, both institutions' names will appear on the diplomas of the program's students.
At the time of the last meeting, Williams was at the new medical facility in Singapore.
"It is a physical place," Williams said. "Progress on delivering the curriculum has been quite strong.... I really have nothing negative to report. All systems go."
The program will enroll its first class of 25 students in Fall 2007 and has already filled 15 of 50 planned faculty positions, Williams said. He explained that there will eventually be about 50 students per class.
Two of the other proposed degree programs also have international facets. The Fuqua School of Business plans to offer a master's of management studies in partnership with Seoul National University.
The School of Law intends to offer a dual juris doctor/diplôme d'études spécialisées supérieures degree with the University of Paris I and Sciences Po, and the law school will partner with the Pratt School of Engineering to offer a dual juris doctor/master's of engineering management degree.
Offering more international joint degree programs is among the major goals in the law school's new strategic plan.
Katharine Bartlett, dean of the law school, said the same sentiment fueled both the idea's inclusion in the plan and the school's desire to participate in the joint program proposed by the French schools.
"It feeds off the same priority on both interdisciplinary and international [programs]," Bartlett said. "There probably will be some more [joint programs]. I couldn't tell you in what fields."?
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