Duke Kunshan University to start recruiting

Duke Kunshan University (DKU), a new China-US joint venture in Kunshan, Jiangsu province, plans to recruit 200 students worldwide.

The students, for both graduate and undergraduate programs will be enrolled in 2014.

The university was jointly established by Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, and Wuhan University in Wubei province.

The university is also supported by Kunshan municipal government, who supplied the land for building the campus.

The university was granted its final establishment approval in September by the Ministry of Education.

During a press conference on Monday, Liu Jingnan, chancellor of Duke Kunshan University and also former president of Wuhan University, said that the university aims to build itself into a place that reflects the best of both Chinese and Western approaches to academic research.

Liu said that DKU will recruit 80 to 100 postgraduate students in three majors; global health; science in medical physics and management studies in 2014.

"All the admission criteria for postgraduate students coincide with the postgraduate admission criteria of Duke University, which means applicants need to present a personal statement about their experiences, and need to take the TOFEL and GRE tests," Liu said.

The university will also open its non-degree liberal undergraduate education in cooperation with at least seven universities in China this year. This means DKU will receive students from these universities studying for several semesters recognized by their schools.

"For the undergraduate program, we want largely to provide a platform for students in China to have a ‘second campus' experience, which is different from traditional higher education." Liu said.

Liu said that so far, DKU has received more than 80 online applications for this year’s postgraduate program, most of which coming from overseas.

Richard H. Brodhead, president of Duke University, said that for the first year, all teaching faculties for DKU will be selected from Duke University.

"We will also have teachers from Wuhan University in the future, as we will recruit some teachers particularly for DKU," he said.

The postgraduate program of DKU has the same tuition and admission level of Duke University in the US.