Doing Business with Seoul

Duke's Fuqua School of Business and Seoul National University's College of Business Administration signed a letter of intent for a four-part alliance that expands Duke's presence in Asia and Seoul National's presence in North America. This is a key step in accomplishing their strategic goals of becoming truly global schools of business, say officials at both institutions.

Final approval of the agreement is expected upon formal acceptance by both universities' faculties, administrations, and boards of trustees. Under the memorandum of understanding signed by Fuqua School Dean Douglas T. Breeden and Seoul National Dean Dong-Sung Cho, Fuqua's two-year-old Cross Continent M.B.A. program will be expanded from two home campuses, one in North America and the other in Europe, to a third in Asia.

Beginning with the Cross Continent class starting in August 2003, up to thirty-five Asian students will have their home base in Seoul. These students will attend four, one-week residential classroom sessions in Seoul, and two each at Duke's home campus in North Carolina and its Fuqua School of Business Europe in Frankfurt, Germany. Starting in 2004, it is anticipated that the entire Cross Continent class of approximately 200 students will attend class in Seoul in addition to the other two campuses, receiving a globally integrated education on all three continents. Faculty from both universities will teach in the program.

The second part of the alliance details the creation of a dual-degree, daytime M.B.A. program that would allow up to four of Seoul National's top students to study at Duke for three semesters, in addition to attending two semesters at Seoul National. They would receive M.B.A. degrees from both business schools. Officials say the schools will also jointly teach customized and open-enrollment, non-degree, executive-education courses at Seoul National and Duke. Duke Corporate Education, Inc., along with Duke University, will work with Seoul National to develop and deliver these programs to Asian-based firms.

The final element of the agreement provides an opportunity for up to two Ph.D. students to visit the other school for a year and to take doctoral courses from the host faculty. "This is a dramatically important expansion of Fuqua's global reach, and we are very pleased to be partnering with Korea's finest business school and one of the best in all of Asia," says Breeden. "It strengthens our Cross Continent program by expanding Duke's presence in Asia so that our students receive an even better grounding in doing business internationally."

Says Cho, "We are very pleased to enter this global alliance with Duke's Fuqua School of Business, which is consistently ranked as one of the world's Top Ten business schools. We expect this alliance to establish Seoul National University as the Asian hub of global business education."

Deans Breeden and Cho originally met as classmates at Harvard Business School in 1973. Breeden transferred after one year to Stanford, where he received his Ph.D. in finance in 1978. In 1997, Cho taught two courses at Fuqua, "International Corporate Strategy" and "Business in Asia," as a visiting professor. Cho visited Duke twice last year, and Breeden visited Korea last March and again in May.