Group to discuss entrepreneurship, international expansion

The Board of Trustees will focus discussion this weekend on entrepreneurship, internationalization and risk assessment.

At the close of an eventful semester, administrators noted that the group will spend more time discussing the status of ongoing projects than approving concrete plans.

Kimberly Jenkins, Trinity ’76, Graduate School ’77 and ’80, will give a “major presentation” about her plans for expanding Duke’s programs in entrepreneurship, said Board Chair and Democratic state Sen. Dan Blue, Law ’73. Jenkins resigned from the Board this Fall to serve in the newly-created position of senior advisor to the president and provost for innovation and entrepreneurship, a post she assumed Nov. 1.

“Kimberly has been a wonderful trustee, a potent trustee,” Brodhead said. “She understood all along that if she was going to take this job, she would have to do it instead of be on the Board. So now we will have this funny thing, which is for Kimberly to come to present to the Board that she herself was a member of until September.”

Brodhead added that many aspects of Duke have long had an entrepreneurial dimension to them, and one of his hopes is that Jenkins can “come and make these parts add up to a whole.” The new focus for Duke is important in the context of an evolving global economy, in which many of the newest big companies are conglomerations of start ups, he added.

“Now, a lot of the most interesting business opportunities are finding somebody who has a bright idea but has no idea how to commercialize it, and creating a start up,” Brodhead said.

China plans “coming to fruition”

The Board will also discuss Duke’s objectives in expanding abroad because the University does not want to expand for expansion’s sake, Brodhead noted.

“Obviously, our idea is that we want to go in with a very clear sense of what we’re there for and make sure we stick with it,” Brodhead said. “We want to be in China because there’s not a single activity in the world that isn’t going to involve China as one of its dimensions.... We want to be in a position to learn [about] China and to help our students learn what the Chinese dimension of every subject we teach is.”

Risky business

The Trustees will also conduct a review of the University’s vulnerabilities to potential external events, Blue said.

The threats to Duke’s well-being are evaluated on their potential negative impact and probability of occurrence. They are then recorded with dots on a “heat map,” with high-probability, high-impact events on the top right of the chart.

The top challenge remains the global economic climate, just as it was last year, Trask said. The Trustees typically review approximately a dozen risks—issues such as a disruption of government funding or an information technology failure. For the first time this year, risks will also be evaluated on a school-by-school basis, Trask said, which will better recognize the unique challenges for individual programs.

Brodhead noted that the University’s increasing internationalization adds challenges to an organization that already does everything from providing food to conducting research.

“How do you deal with health issues of students when they’re not on your campus for you to take care of? How do you make sure you obey the law when you’re dealing with 100 different countries with over 400 different legal systems?” Brodhead asked. “I think next year we’re going to have transactions in 100 countries.”

Discussion of campus controversies

Although neither topics are official agenda items, the Board will discuss both the allegations against Dr. Anil Potti, the cancer researcher who resigned Nov. 19, and the series of events that prompted Brodhead to write a letter to the student body Nov. 15.

Potti has become a controversial figure following the discovery of errors in his research and the University’s identification of “issues of substantial concern” in his resumes and applications for research funding. The Trustees have received updates concerning the investigations of Potti beyond what has been made public, Brodhead said.

Blue said the Trustees want to ensure that proper protocols acceptable to the scientific community are followed in all reviews of Potti, but he also noted that the Board is not particularly involved in the details of the case.

Blue added that the Trustees will more generally discuss campus culture issues, referencing the instances such as the PowerPoint of a Duke alumna’s sexual exploits as an example of “the risks of what bad behavior might mean” for Duke.

“Duke students are better than many of these images would lead people to believe. [Duke has] the best students in the world—some of the brightest students in this world, and this conduct is not representative of the student body,” Blue said before complimenting Brodhead’s “timely” letter to students. “It’s good to be reminded that you guys have to take ownership of the things that paint people’s perception of you.”

Brodhead said he wrote the e-mail to address not one particular event but rather “the accumulation of stuff.” He noted, however, that there are far more important things happening on the University’s campus than these events, which generated intense but fleeting attention.

“What’s really the right word?” Brodhead asked about characterizing the instances that drew attention to Duke this semester. “Were they interesting, or were they uninteresting? Were they uninteresting things treated as if they were interesting?”