Sino-US joint venture is planning to attract high quality undergraduates from around the world

The leading Sino-US joint-venture university in China wants to attract more international students and will begin accepting applications this month for its new undergraduate degree program for fall 2018.

Close to Shanghai and in the heart of the Yangtze River Delta region, China's major economic hub, Duke Kunshan University is a collaborative venture between Duke University, which is consistently ranked among the top 10 universities in the United States, and Wuhan University in China.

Duke Kunshan University is "committed to bringing together a diverse cohort of high-quality students from across the world", says Denis Simon, its executive vice-chancellor.

The university, located in Kunshan in East China's Jiangsu province, is seeking to recruit a class of 225 students, including at least 50 from overseas. The university has previously offered only postgraduate courses and a non-degree undergraduate program called Global Learning Semester.

Following its rapid economic growth over the past four decades, China has become a popular destination for international students.

A total of 442,773 international students went to China to study in 2016, according to statistics from the Ministry of Education. Jiangsu is the third-largest destination for foreign students, behind Beijing and Shanghai.

The number of students from Europe was about 71,319 in 2016, which was 6.85 percent more than the previous year. France ranks as the top source of students, with 10,414 studying in China, while Germany ranks second with 8,145.

He Chugang, general manager of the southern China region at Amber Education, an overseas study consultancy, says the current number of students from developed countries studying in China, such as those from Europe and the United States, is not that big. But the trend is that students from Europe and the US are getting more interested in studying in China, He says.

"China's rapid economic growth will bring more business opportunities and will also make China a more global presence," he says. "This will attract more students to come to China to learn about its language, culture and market. Many executives in global companies have the experience of studying in China."

He adds that in certain fields, such as creative arts, design and technology, there are good learning opportunities in China.

Russell Davis, director of global student recruitment at Duke Kunshan, says the university provides students with a unique opportunity to live and study in China and the US while pursuing a world-class education and degrees from both Duke and Duke Kunshan.

"Students will study in a truly global environment. The undergraduate academic program spans two continents - in Kunshan, at a state-of-the-art campus; and a two-semester experience at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina," he says, adding that non-Chinese students will be required to learn Mandarin.

Davis says Duke Kunshan will steadily increase the class size in the years ahead. At full capacity, Duke Kunshan will have 2,000 undergraduate students with a mix of 60 percent Chinese from the mainland and 40 percent from other regions of the world.

When graduating from Duke Kunshan, students will receive a fully accredited Duke degree and join Duke's global network of 170,000 alumni. They also will receive a degree from Duke Kunshan that is approved by the Ministry of Education.

The four-year bachelor's degree program is based on an interdisciplinary liberal arts and sciences curriculum that allows students to explore a variety of subjects before choosing a major toward the end of their second year.

"They will learn skills that can be applied in any career path, either today or tomorrow," says Simon, the executive vice-chancellor. "They'll design, create and shape the jobs of tomorrow - jobs that likely don't exist yet. And, equally important, they will learn to work across borders and cultures with people from different backgrounds and disciplines.

"Overall, they will become more sensitive, understanding and empathetic - critical attributes that are key to a fulfilled life professionally and personally."

By the time students in Duke Kunshan's inaugural class declare their majors in 2020, the university will have about 20 majors from which to choose.

The first group of majors approved by the Ministry of Education includes applied mathematics and computational sciences with a focus on math, and material science with a focus on physics. These majors were designed to equip students for either graduate study or immediate employment in settings where they will be expected to draw on knowledge from multiple fields in order to succeed.

Additional majors will be introduced in the next two years, including humanities majors that integrate history, philosophy, literature and the arts, as well as social science majors integrating economics, sociology, anthropology and psychology. There also will be offerings in science and mathematics.

Prospective students may apply to Duke Kunshan through the Common Application system.

Applicants will be automatically considered for available scholarships, including full scholarships, Davis says.

chenyingqun@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily European Weekly 08/25/2017 page19)